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When the traveler awoke, he was in his bedroom, on the same bed he had awoken
on before. He blinked at the guttering light that came from the candles, and sat up
tentatively, cautiously, and wondered what had become of his clothing. What he
remembered… it must have been nothing more than a dream. A dark dream and nothing
more substantial. Nothing more. Nothing more.
There was a burning pain that radiated up into his back, making his face twist in a
slight grimace. He convinced himself that it was from the storm he had wandered in, and
from the fall he had taken over the ridge. In standing, he caught a glance of something
strange on one of his pale thighs; upon closer inspection, the traveler found a tracery of
purple-blue bruises. It was harder for him to persuade himself that his memories were
only of a dream.
A bath had again been drawn for him, and the traveler settled into the warm heat
of it to soak away some of the pain. He was… terribly tired, somehow drained from
that… whatever it had been. Dream or reality or nightmare, it seemed to have taken
something from him. By the time he emerged from the steaming water, however, the
man had convinced himself that it had not happened. He was even going to prove it.
Once he was dried and dressed, the traveler seized a candle and went with a
purpose back down to the iron-clad dungeon door. Ignoring pain, he descended the stairs
again and strode through the stone rooms, paying scant regard to the contents of them,
until he arrived at the one from his memory.
It was as it had been, with nothing he could see out of place. Impatient, the
traveler went through another door, searching almost in anger for another soul in that
place. He dared the rooms to reveal someone as a fool would tempt Fate. He found
something far stranger than other soul.
The traveler found statues. There was a long hall of marble statues, leaning out of
the walls in fantastic positions. Their bodies seemed to be one with the walls, wrists and
torsos and arms seeming to disappear into the stone, as though they were embraced by it,
not placed against or carved out of. Now curious, the traveler approached them; they
were strangely beautiful, and were so masterfully worked that they almost appeared to be
alive. For a moment, the traveler almost believed he saw them breathing.
“Do you see something you like?”
The traveler startled and turned, dropping his candle to the stone floor where it
rolled away, casting a pool of stuttering yellow light at his feet. The shadowy figure
behind him was the same as the one before; the same person that he had convinced
himself was only a figment. Here he was, silver-haired and slender as before, appearing
exactly the same as when…
The figure approached, walking with smooth and sensuous steps while the dark-
haired man was rooted firmly to the spot. Once close enough, the figure pressed against
his chest, trailing a slender hand across his pale cheek. The traveler thought to flinch
away, but his body somehow refused to obey.
“Who are you?”
Something in that silky voice was impossible to resist, and he found himself
saying Valentine before he could even think to stop. The figure’s red lips curved into a
becoming smile, situated so close that the traveler could feel soft breath against his own.
Like some instinctual notion, unlooked-for and uncontrolled, there was some heated
emotion welling in his chest. It made him want to press his lips against the ones so close
to him, it made him want to feel what he had felt the night before.
And the figure knew it, counted on it. His soft, crimson lips pressed to the
traveler’s pale ones, the hand on his fair cheek pulling him deeper. The dark-haired
wanderer had no will to resist, no defense against this form of attack, and simply
surrendered to his desires.
It seemed like hardly a moment before the velvety covers were underneath his
back again, his body ravaged a second time by sensations to intense for him to
comprehend.
That first encounter with this silver-haired figure had been etched into his
memory like carvings in stone; perhaps a little hazy on the edges, but clear as glass
otherwise. This… this he could hardly perceive even as it happened, his senses
overwhelmed and flooded by a commotion of feeling. The traveler was not even sure
when it began or ended, even as his limbs fell heavily to the feather mattress from
exhaustion, and the figure retreated from his aching body. He felt as though he could
sleep for a century.
The figure above him was grinning widely, a little bubble of laughter breaking on
his lips. Silver hair clung to his forehead, a few errant strands across his flushed cheeks
and trapped on his red lips. He was alive, vital, possessing effusive vivacity at that
moment. And the man on the bed… was pale, drained, sleeping in a way that the dead
seldom achieve. With a little laughter still sliding forth, he pulled the pale traveler into
his arms. The figure’s slender frame belied his true strength, though it seemed strange
that he lifted so tall a man from the bed with apparently so little effort. The dark head
lolled back as he was carried, every limb limp and listless and unnaturally pale, almost to
the hue of flawless marble. Only the soft rise and fall of his chest revealed that he still
lived.
He was brought into the statues’ hall, where the figure carried him past many
stony figures, until he came to a place that was yet unfilled by any beautiful effigy. The
traveler was lifted up, his back pressed against the cold stone. Then, as though the wall
were water, his toned form slid in, embraced by an almost liquid substance that hardened
back into rock once he was placed inside.
The traveler’s hands were captured above his head, disappearing at the wrists into
the stone with only the tips of slim fingers jutting beyond; the rest of his toned chest was
exposed, until his hips delved back beneath the stone. A small portion of thigh and knees
were visible, until the stone embraced everything else beneath the living rock. Then, as
the silver-haired figure watched, his pale skin, so marble-like in hue, did change into the
smooth stone, the subtle transition from fair flesh to flawless white rock difficult to see
except by those who had seen it often. The traveler had become one more beautiful
sculpture among a hall of beautiful sculptures, almost appearing alive from the perfection
of his form. Every muscle was as ideally defined as it had been when flesh, every stony
strand of hair as fine as it was before. The silver-haired figure stepped up, pressing his
lips against the perfect marble lips of the traveler, almost as in a final farewell. The tips
of his fingers brushed over the smoothness of one cheek.
The traveler was still warm.