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Kili was still feeling relatively festive and jolly, as he made his way through his garrison towards the vicus. He readily returned the many cheerful calls of “Yo! Saturnalia!” that greeted him, and didn’t really mind the few good-natured jibes from the more intoxicated of his men.
“Yo! Saturnalia!” he called at his favourite farrier, the one who made sure that Kili’s horse never once threw a shoe, and “Yo! Saturnalia!,” again, at the Optio who, he vaguely remembered, once saved his life on the road, and “Yo! Saturnalia!” at –
Fili.
Who was casually leaning against the wall of the stables, as if it was his regular haunting ground, just another legionnaire, except for those new-fangled trousers, and a shirt, and the long, flowing hair that no legionnaire would ever be allowed to keep. In truth, he looked nothing like a legionnaire, but he owned the space as if he belonged there all the same.
“Yo yourself,” his Barbarian greeted. “Come, we need to fix the sun.”
“I’m sorry, we what now?” Kili spluttered. “What have you done to the sun?!”
“Nothing. Why do you always assume that everything is my fault?!”
“Because it usually is.”
“Well, not this time. Come.”
“What’s wrong with the sun, anyway?!”
“It’s dying.”
“You killed the sun?!”
“No. I didn’t. I told you: I am an innocent biscuit. Here. Horse.” Fili passed him the reigns.
Another man might have questioned the feasibility of the sun dying, since it never once failed to make its daily appearance for as long as anyone could remember. He may have quoted the might of gods and mentioned how puny the mere mortals were in comparison. He may have queried why it was specifically their responsibility to offer assistance, in such a dramatic and world-changing circumstances. But here, in this faraway land, full of strangeness and magic, Kili only asked:
“What do I bring with me? I’ve never rescued the sun before.”
Fili stopped and stared at him for a moment, as if Kili was soft in the head.
“Nothing. I have everything we need. Up!” he ordered, mounting his own steed and heading out towards the main gates.
Bewildered, but unquestioning, Kili followed suit.
There was a harsh, unforgiving kind of beauty to Cambria in winter. And solitude, emptiness, unlike any that Kili had ever experienced anywhere else in the whole wide world.
It was in Cambria that Kili first learned the concept of privacy, which was to say: a separate space, where other people were not. A space that was only for you and those you allowed in. Perhaps something like that existed in some sacred nooks of the Roman temples, but those were for the gods and their servants, and not just a place where you could go, if you wanted to be alone.
Perhaps the baking sands of the Desertum Magnum of Mauretania might have rivalled it for the sheer lack of things, but where the desert felt deadly and threatening, the endless, gently rolling hills of Fili’s homeland were neither positive, nor negative – they just were. Endless and eternal, like the world before the gods made the first humans.
Generally, it rained here far more often than it snowed, for which Kili was grateful – he’d first encountered the strange, white, ash-like substance when he’d been stationed in Noricum, which was a mountainous region, but the ground neither shook nor growled under his feet, and Kili wasn’t quite sure what to make of the strange, cold stuff, and whether to take cover or not.
He’d learned to steady his nerves ever since, having seen it again in Germania and Belgica, which were both remarkably flat and lacking in angry god dwellings, but it always unnerved him. Besides, since Noricum, Kili had figured that the only way to tolerate the white flakes was from the back of a horse, because once you were back on the ground, no amount of Roman gear was going to protect your privates, or your toes, from the nipping bites of the cold.
But it was snowing in Cambria today. Only a gentle dusting, which didn’t threaten any of Kili’s more delicate body parts, and instead painted the entire landscape in a cosy dusting of white, quietening everything down into a muffled silence, and making the whole thing look strangely… romantic.
There was still wind to contend with, of course, (it was always windy in Cambria), ruffling up the coat of an occasional sheep or a wild pony they passed, and lifting thin whisps of the white stuff off of the hilltops, only to blow them whimsically somewhere else.
But Kili was here, alone, with his personal Barbarian, and the emptiness felt like freedom in that moment; the kind that comes with the knowledge that you could do anything you wanted out here and nobody would know. Kili couldn’t remember the last time he had felt this free. Certainly not since before he came to this land. Perhaps he could understand, just a little bit, the carefree-ness and the easy confidence of his Barbarian–
His Barbarian.
Who had stopped his horse not three paces ahead and was watching him with an expression of a brewer watching his fermentation process.
“Um…”
“You want another fur?” Fili offered a’propos of nothing, reaching down to rummage through his saddle bags. “I’ve got another fur. I’ve predicted this might happen, and I got you some proper clothes.”
“Thanks,” Kili muttered, refusing to sound like a child caught enjoying himself in the middle of a supposed tantrum, and meekly accepted a whole bundle of garments, which included a shirt, a furry jerkin, and even a pair of those stupid leather trousers that Fili favoured, which made his cock feel like it was glued to his thigh.
“Um…” Kili tried again, eyeing the clothing reluctantly. It was probably warm, though, and he was already losing the feeling in his legs…
“Well, come on then! Change. There’s no one else here to see you, and you haven’t got anything that I haven’t seen yet,” Fili leered, crossing his arms and staring at him expectantly.
Fili had left his Roman for but one moment.
“Stay here. Don’t wander off,” he told Kili sternly, leaving him near the entrance to the site, while Fili took both their horses towards the stables.
The problem was that Kili’s horse had the misfortune of being saddled up in the Roman fashion, with Roman gear. So, if Kili wanted to keep his gear, or – more to the point – if he wanted to keep his horse, and presumably use it again on his way back, then Fili had to find a way to make said gear… disappear. Temporarily.
(He would have disappeared the horse too, if he could, but that was harder to achieve, so he just had to hope that it would be mistaken for a mount that he’d purchased from the Romans for himself. Stealing Fili’s horse was widely regarded as both counter-productive, because the horse would just return to Fili, and suicidal, because then Fili would ask it where it had been.)
It was a bit of a risk bringing Kili here at all, and Fili had spent literally some minutes, debating the merits and perils of doing so, but in the end, he decided that Kili would never get the appreciation of his people’s sophisticated culture, traditions and beliefs, if he wasn’t allowed to partake in any of them.
Fili wasn’t stupid though – he’d taken some steps to disguise the Roman as one of his own, and reasoned that as long as Kili kept his mouth shut, he had a reasonable chance of passing for Fili’s latest hot piece of arse. Most people got distracted by the unnatural perfection of his facial features anyway, and Fili was well known for his excellent taste in men.
Besides, if Fili was honest with himself, he simply wanted his Roman with him for the Winter Solstice. The Winter’s Turning, or Gamonoson as it was known among his people, was all about your loved ones, your kin, your tribe, even all different tribes, bounding together to survive the darkest and harshest pits of winter. It was a time for togetherness, for whispered conversations in the darkness of the roundhouse, for secrets, and honesty, for making bairns messily, and the truth that when it really came down to it, if you didn’t help your fellow man, chances were that neither of you would survive.
And so, all the chieftains were here, with their families and blood brothers, and in the past, Fili would have arrived and then been neatly folded into some other, larger group of distant relations, and that would have been that.
But this year, Fili was here with Kili. Only Kili. He was making a statement.
Horses securely stabled, their feed paid for, the Roman saddle and harness packed into a sack and tied off, Fili stepped outside the stables and scanned the area for what he needed: an urchin in need of a coin.
A coin that could be earned by stashing Fili’s problematic little bundle in urchin’s own roundhouse in the village nearby, and another one for when it was retrieved the next day.
Kili had wandered off.
Of course he did, Fili cursed mentally, as he sprinted off to scout the area. He might have as well told his sheep to stay in position and he would have had more success. For a Roman, Kili was surprisingly inquisitive, which normally was to his credit, but not when it interfered with Fili’s plans.
Eventually, he found his charge perched on one of the collapsed menhirs, quiet as you like, wolfing down a steaming bowl of stew. There were no bodies strewn nearby, his Roman didn’t appear to have been taken hostage, nor was he injured, so in that first instance Fili congratulated himself.
And then he looked closer.
“What’s that?”
“No idea,” Kili shrugged. “It’s very good though. Could use some meat and a glug of olive oil, but the mushrooms taste amazing.” Kili licked his lips.
“Mushrooms.” Fili tilted his head.
“Mhm. There’s a neat little feasting area set up behind the biggest of the stones. The bowls were stacked just to one side. I’ll show you, if you like.”
Fili looked up towards the main altar, the first cold tendrils of understanding sinking in.
“I was ready for that. You accosted me before breakfast. I was starving by the time we got here,” Kili chattered, in between the spoonfuls.
Fili absent-mindedly made a mental note to feed his Roman before taking him on any future Adventures of Great Importance.
“I could go for seconds, actually. Let me just finish this off and we’ll go.”
“Right. Can I have some?” Fili snatched the bowl, knocked back the rest of the stew in three big gulps, and then tossed the bowl under the menhir, glancing around to see if anyone had seen them.
“Hey! I was eating that!”
“What is yours is mine, what is mine –“
“You couldn’t have waited a few moments before you got your own portion?!”
“- is also mine. No. No more portions. You’ve had enough as it is. Anyway, is not for Romans.”
“But –“
“Come, we must secure a good spot for a camp.”
“Wait. What do you mean: ‘not for Romans’?”
It didn’t take long for the mushrooms to take effect. They arrived just before the sunset, so by the time Fili had them settled down with their bedrolls around a fire, Kili was starting to go loopy. And no wonder, considering how few mushrooms were left in what Fili managed to wrestle away from him.
In a way, it made things easier: it made Kili more compliant and less Roman, as he followed after Fili into the Great Stone Circle and watched with a fierce frown of concentration, as Fili’s people danced around the fires, made offerings to the gods, and prayed for the sun’s swift return on this longest of nights.
It tapped into Kili’s own unquestioning acceptance of all things mysterium and sacrum, of some things that should be done ‘just so’, even if Kili himself didn’t quite understand why, or even if it wasn’t his own gods. He respected ‘otherness’ of all kinds without a judgement, and he didn’t have to make a conscious choice to do so, Fili realised with some surprise, perhaps gently enlightened by his own unplanned dinner.
He asked discreet questions about the rites and drank readily enough with anyone who brought them a cup to share. Although some looks lingered on them, not one man drew his knife – whether this was because it was Gamonoson and all were welcome to share in the sun’s re-awakening, because Kili had managed to fool them all, or because no-one wanted to cross blades with Fili – remained unclear.
And then came the time for the oath-taking.
Fili felt his Roman curl up around him, bury his face into the curve where his neck met his shoulder and whisper – in garbled, nonsensical Latin – all sorts of vows of his own, right into Fili’s skin.
And Fili, forever-free and generally unbound by oaths of any kind, vowed that this, this he would protect, whatever it took.
But the night was only just beginning and ahead of them lay some of the darkest, deepest hours of the whole year.
There were people all around him.
Kili thought humourlessly that he’d only just identified Cambria as the ‘Land of the Alone’ on his way up here, and now the gods saw it fit to prove him wrong.
There were so many people. Fili’s folk, some other folk he didn’t know, singing, dancing, looking at him, talking, brushing up against him, laughing…
Fili was there too, but he wasn’t watching. He was looking at the others.
The others were looking at Kili. They resembled someone. Some of them did, anyway. Maybe they were all related? Somehow, they looked really familiar. They walked among Fili’s people. Lit by the fires. People, but also… not-people.
They resembled him.
His ancestors. Among Fili’s people. Di Manes. The spirits.
Why were his ancestors here?
You have failed in mos maiorum. What are you even doing here?
“What?” Kili blinked. How would the Silures know of mos maiorum?
What are you doing? Gaius Durinus Kilius. Unworthy of his name. You have become one of them. A heathen!
“I…”
One of the oldest, most respected families of Rome. Tracing its lineage all the way back to the sacred Patres conscripti! You dishonour yourself. You dishonour your name. What are you doing?
“No!”
Are you a barbarian now, to be taking part in their dark rituals? A filthy, uncultured barbarian, nothing more. Conquered himself. Broken and subdued. Shame.
“I’m not –“
Shame. Shame. Shame. Sh -
Fili carefully walked his Roman back to their bedrolls. He watched Kili descend deeper and deeper, but this was not a path that he could follow.
Mars was angry.
He was Kili’s god not by choice. Rather by the lack of choice.
You have failed to upload the Roman virtus!
“There has not been a chance, oh Mars Invictus!” Kili protested.
You bring an entire legion into these lands and what do you do with it? Nothing! You dishonour their eagle.
“It didn’t make sense! Why risk Roman lives in a pitched battle when there was no need?”
They rot because of you! They turn soft, effeminate… they turn barbarian! Just like their commander! You are a shame of Rome! A laughing stock. One day all your soft little lies will come to light, and they will all know you for what you are: an imposter! You dishonour every single Roman soldier who ever bled to take this land in the last one hundred years!
“Whatever decision I made back on that battlefield, there hasn’t been a day when I regretted it! For those lads, in their barracks, it meant life –“
Oh, don’t pretend that it’s about your men! You only ever wanted him. You placed the desires of your own flesh above the needs of Rome!
Kili had never thought of himself as a coward; never once turned away from the battle, or the ugliness of taking life, or the weight of his command.
But when a giant, flaming gladius of his god rose to strike him down, Kili did the only thing that he could: he ran.
“Don’t fight it. It’s always a thousand times worse if you fight it.”
Fili took a deep breath and casually fell through the boundary between the one world and the other.
There was a house. It wasn’t the only one, but it was the one for him. He snuck in more as a force of habit, than any real concern about what he might find inside.
Baskets. Lots and lots of baskets. And fleeces, so many fleeces, at various stages of processing.
Fili picked up the distaff left near the door, and the drop spindle, and started spinning, carefully making his way deeper inside.
“Amad,” he bowed his head respectfully at the woman he found sitting in front of a loom set up near the fire. He never knew if she was his own mother, or a Mother Goddess of all men; she never turned around to show her face.
Uninvited, but also unopposed, Fili sat cross-legged directly on the floor, and quietly busied himself with making yarn.
Did you get lost?
Fili considered. “No. I’m usually exactly where I’m supposed to be,” he grinned at her.
There was a bang, as the door flew open and then shut again. Something entered, but there was nothing more in the house than there had been before.
Fili frowned and noticed that there was a knot in his handiwork.
He didn’t make the knot.
He drafted some more fibre and continued his work.
Something crept towards the window and froze there.
Fili found a second knot.
His is a path you can’t follow.
Fili spun his spindle again, a little harder than he intended. “I know.”
Third knot flew through his fingertips.
Fili stopped. He was running out of fibre anyway. “You want to wind this up?” he offered, grabbing one end and offering his hands in a gesture he remembered so vividly from his childhood.
She turned towards him then, but there was a noise near the window, which distracted him.
Are you sure you haven’t lost your way?
Fili hesitated, but didn’t look up, keeping his eyes down on the packed earth of the floor. It didn’t do to be bold in the presence of maybe-goddesses. The first coils of yarn were wrapped around his fingers.
“No,” he admitted eventually. “But I wanted to visit.”
You have always forged your own path.
“You disapprove?”
A hint of a smile in her voice, as the yarn grew heavy around his wrists. No. But it does amuse me, and in that moment Fili thought that perhaps it was more his mother than the goddess.
He was about to try and sneak a glance upwards, when two fingers were pressed into his forehead and flicked him back with the ease of a shepherd picking up a new-born lamb.
Besides. You usually end up exactly where you’re supposed to be.
Fili fell back into the softness of the pelts, the little rolags, the flurry of yarn and then further down, down, down.
“You have done me dirty!”
The woman had huge, brown, almond-shaped eyes, a cascade of dark auburn hair that reached even below her very shapely bum, utterly flawless skin, which could be admired right down to the little nook between her perfectly round and enticing breasts, which would no doubt bounce just so under the right circumstances.
Most people would have gotten distracted by the unnatural perfection of her facial features, but all Fili could think of was that those wet doe eyes weren’t unlike another almond-shaped pair that he loved, adored and missed.
Branwen giggled.
Fili had landed in a bed. An extremely ornate, four poster bed, piled high with cushions, silks of the highest quality, and pristine, super-soft furs that appeared to have never been anywhere near a crumb, a flea, a speck of dust, or a bodily fluid of any kind.
He was also naked as the day he was born. That’s how he knew that he was in the presence of the goddess of love.
Fortunately for Fili, he didn’t really mind being in the nip, so having made out his surroundings, he went on the offensive.
“Seriously?! A Roman?! And that seemed like a good idea, did it?”
Are you really complaining? Don’t you like the little noises he makes when you do that thing with your fingers?
“Turns me on like burning.”
That little bite of his lower lip when he wants it, but won’t ask for it? I thought that was so cute!
“It should be outlawed.”
And that thing he does with his hips when he finds the right rhythm?
“Drives me absolutely wild.”
Yes, I thought you would like that!
“He’s a very competent rider. I appreciate that in a man.”
He doesn’t mind going at it twice in a row!
“Sometimes. If you catch him in the right mood.”
And that thing where he actually likes being fucked after he’d come, until he can’t stop trembling from the overstimulation?
“Weird, but strangely hot. The first time round I thought he was having a seizure.”
He always looks so disturbed after, doesn’t he? Like you’re not sure if he’s just been attacked or had the time of his life.
“He didn’t even know how to suck someone off properly, when I first got him! I had to teach him!”
I know, I very much enjoyed watching your lessons.
“And eating someone out? Apparently, it’s not a done thing in Rome!”
Romans are so weird.
“So weird!!”
Somewhere in the distance, just about visible through the entrance to Branwen’s comfortable roundhouse, a lone figure was running across the landscape at full pelt.
“Emotionally, he’s constantly constipated.” Fili picked up, watching the figure with mild interest.
You know that he isn’t. It’s just his face. Inside, deep waters run.
“Power play is barely a work in progress.”
It is, but it is progressing, as you yourself admit. Watching him finally break and really let loose is a special gift, which I might one day bestow upon you.
“And you know what he asked me the other day?!”
I’m a goddess, Fili. I know everything.
“To find a woman and sire some heirs!” Fili threw his hands up into the air.
That one still stung. As if Fili could just re-carve the groves of his own heart.
He meant well. He feels guilty about ending your line. The ancestral lines are super-important to the Romans, see?
“You haven’t thought about that one, have you?” Fili crossed his arms and half-turned towards the goddess who ruled his life with ruthless randomness.
Outside, the lone figure ran across Fili’s field of vision once more, only in the opposite direction this time.
All in good time.
The figure was possibly screaming, if Fili’s ears weren’t deceiving him. He was also in the nude.
“I’m sorry, who is that? And why is he running around like that? Just what have you done to the poor man?!”
Nothing I haven’t done to you Branwen sent him a mysterious smile, which would have made other men hard, but made Fili only alarmed.
“What –“
She pressed two of her fingers to his forehead, and it felt like burning, before Fili was falling once more.
Next time, bring me some of those sweet little honey cakes that you offer readily enough to that Roman slut. I want to try them, was the last thing he heard, as the world closed over his head.
Kili was kneeling in front of Jupiter Feretrius, his oldest, most primal incarnation, trembling with fear and self-disgust, awaiting his due punishment.
The red-faced giant of a god was studying him, like one might study an ant they’re about to squash beneath their sandal. Behind him, the Gates of Janus were thrown wide open and blood ran thick and congealing down the stairs in front of them.
You have failed in all five virtues of a true Roman: pietas, gravitas, constantia, virtus and disciplina. In each of those you have been tested, and in each of those you have been found severely lacking, the god boomed, and the power of his voice was such that Kili fell to the floor and tried to cover his ears with his hands. For the civic negligence, moral decay, for the failures of leadership, disgrace of your own family name and the utter disregard for the Res Publicae you will be crucified.
Kili heard him, but something else was fighting for his attention by now.
There was a triumph going on somewhere nearby. He could hear the crowds cheering, heckling, vying for blood.
It seemed to be getting closer.
Behind him, the same booming voice was ordering Kili’s own men to take him, but Kili’s eyes were fixed on a cart which just rolled down the Via Sacra and was making its way down to the Forum.
On top of the cart, kneeling, bloodied and broken, tied down by his wrists and ankles was Fili.
“No.” Kili breathed, and he had never felt the rage like that before. “Fili!” it was only a whisper, but somehow Fili had heard him, and he looked up, blue eyes momentarily locking on brown.
“Why?” he whispered only this one word.
Kili thrashed.
Fili re-surfaced with a gasp in the middle of a rolling sea. The rain was lashing down, lightning cut the sky, and the shore of Fili’s homeland wasn’t too far away, but rather worryingly, it was all vertical cliffs and jagged rocks at their bottom.
Somehow, Fili knew that things here were bad. The sea tasted of turmoil, despair and conflict, so much internal conflict that it was overwhelming everything else, making Fili struggle to stay on the surface against the foamy manes of the waves that were inexorably dragging him towards the rocks.
Confused, he tried his best to look around and understand why he was here.
But there was nothing.
Which meant that there was only one thing for it: Fili took a deep breath and dove deeper under.
“Well, that’s messed up,” someone said directly behind him and Kili almost jumped out of his skin. “Let me guess: you do it for the glory of Rome, something something, but really, you just want to watch people die a gruesome death, right?”
“How are you here?!” Kili stared incredulously at his Barbarian, who was dripping wet for some reason, and busying himself cutting through Kili’s recently-fitted bonds. On the cart below them another blond-haired chieftain took his place.
“I don’t actually know,” Fili shrugged. “But I’m usually exactly where I’m supposed to be, so I guess that’s how. Besides, I’ve always said that your Roman defences were shit!”
Above them, Jupiter Feretrius Triumphator, Optimus Maximus, the head of the Capitoline Triad, the most powerful god of Rome, raised one of his giant fists to end them once and for all.
“Nope,” Fili told the god, looking up coolly. “I’m not one of yours; I’m just visiting. You cannot harm me.”
Kili gaped.
“We’re leaving.”
“What?!”
“Just remember: ‘I am your anchor and you are mine’. Got it?”
“I – what?!”
I am your anchor and you are mine.
Once, only once, tipsy on wine and hazy with love, Kili dared to wonder out loud what would happen when they died. After all, they believed in very different afterlives – it seemed inevitable that their souls were destined to be parted forever.
Fili only scoffed. “Oh, I’ll be around. I’ll just sneak in and out, I expect.”
It seemed like a flimsy hope to hang one’s eternity on, but somehow, Kili believed in that sentiment more than he believed in all the gods combined.
I am your anchor and you are mine.
“Poor Roman. Were the gods a little rough with you?” Somehow Fili managed to walk the fine line between sympathy, genuine concern, and mockery. “It happens sometimes,” he nodded knowingly to himself.
Kili didn’t have it in him to reply. His head was spinning, his body was torn between seeking the comfort of Fili’s touch, wanting to hide under the covers, and just being violently sick all over his immediate surroundings. His soul was howling. He didn’t remember what the gods revealed to him, but he felt like somebody had chewed him up and spit him back out, minced.
“Don’t have words for me yet, anwylyd?” Fili’s blue eyes swam into focus, some indescribable amount of time later, while his fingers slipped into Kili’s hair with the gentleness of a lover coaxing a response after a particularly intense session. “That’s okay. I’ve got you. Rest now, you are safe,” he murmured, and Kili knew that he was.
“Why the sensual language, Fee?” was the first thing Kili managed to croak out, watching his Barbarian busy himself around their little camping spot with eyes half-closed.
“What other language is there?” Fili threw him an amused look. “There’s only one thing even more intimate than a person sharing their body with another, and that is a person sharing their soul with their gods. I respect and acknowledge the trust and toll that one takes; why would I not recognise the other?”
“I s’ppose,” Kili agreed, finally letting his eyes drop. “Talk to me, Fili. Just talk to me for a while, will you?” he requested, in the same small voice that had only been heard in the safety of Fili’s bed before.
I am your anchor and you are mine.
“Come. It is time. The new sun will be born soon.”
Kili blinked blearily at the world painted in delicate hues of pink and purple.
Fili watched him with a mixture of curiosity and caution.
“Up?” he offered, getting to his feet and reaching a hand down.
Kili was sick three times in the next ten minutes, retching until his stomach felt tied in knots and the world was more orange than pink.
“Good!” Fili declared, fixing the length of Kili’s hair that he was holding out of the way for him into a high bun on top of his head. “Now drink this,” he ordered, passing him a steaming mug.
Another man might have questioned the prudence of drinking yet another Silurian concoction, after having been nearly killed by the first one he tried. He may have mentioned how upset his stomach still was, and how unlikely he was to hold anything down. He may have queried what exactly was in the brew. But Kili only asked:
“All in one go, or sip?”
“As you like,” Fili grinned at him, before passing him a chunk of warm, freshly baked bread which he’d procured from somewhere.
Kili melted into the delicate sweetness of his drink, into the pleasant warmth that travelled down his throat and settled soothingly in his stomach, warming and calming everything down from the inside. He tasted mint, yarrow, camomile, and a hint of something else, which he couldn’t quite identify. A dash of honey countered the bitterness of the herbs, but didn’t overpower it, so as not to be sickening.
He tentatively tore off a piece of bread and tried it. It was the best bread he had ever tasted in all his life.
“Easy,” Fili chuckled from above the rim of his own hot brew. “Don’t want to overdo it now, do we?”
Kili looked at him then, for the first time that night feeling vaguely conscious. Fili look rumpled, and a little worse for wear himself, but there was his usual cocky smile lurking in the corners of his lips and more than a hint of dimples. He was watching Kili right back with interest, which was how Fili was usually looking at him, nothing new there.
“Was it the mushrooms?” Kili asked wearily.
“Mhm. They’re for the druids. And only those who know how to navigate the paths of the gods safely.”
Kili tilted his head. “You had some too.”
“And I went on travels of my own.”
For a moment they sat around the fire in comfortable silence, sipping their drinks, simply enjoying the fact that the world was no longer lurching sickeningly all around them.
“How much do you remember?” Kili eventually asked.
There were overwhelming flashes of guilt, shame and conflict, swirling around his head, but nothing concrete, except an echo of an outrage, which he couldn’t pin to anything specific, but which Kili generally learned to associate with Fili.
Fili licked at the edge of one of his whiskers and fixed his eyes on the Stone Circle above them. “Not much. The gods usually leave you with only those bits that you need to take along.”
Another quiet moment gave the them the time to survey their own thoughts and take stock.
“You took me on a journey.”
Blue eyes moved back to his face, assessing. “I never intended to take you quite so far,” he said quietly.
It wasn’t quite an apology and Kili didn’t quite nod in its acknowledgement.
“What now?” He asked, not knowing whether he was asking about the proceedings of the morning, their relationship in general, or something else entirely.
“Now we go and greet the new sun,” Fili grinned, taking his hand and leading them both towards the first rays of the new year, which were shooting perfectly straight through the circle of silent stone witnesses to the uncountable acts of intimacy between men and their gods throughout the millennia.