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You don’t remember how you got here, but with each step you take it seems to matter less and less.
The trees that surround you reach high and creak every so often as refreshing waves of wind roll in.
The direction you continue on takes you along a well-worth path in the lush green grass where there are no stray weeds to trip you up or reaching fronds to snag at your clothing.
You can hear a river somewhere nearby and the smells are of fresh air, wet earth and a hint of something sharp and high like lemongrass or apple blossoms.
Dimly you wonder if you will ever solve the mystery of your destination, but for now at least it's a pleasant walk.
Your boots continue their steady pace on the path and you feel yourself smile when the sound of the soles hitting the occasional branch or stray rock reminds you of animal hooves.
There is a whisper of a memory there- children playing, stomping around in their roles as horses and shrieking with every emotion under the midday sun while they continued to act out their little dramas.
You remember that not far from the children there was another kind of drama unfolding- more adult in nature but in the grand scheme of things it couldn’t have been any more important than the young colts who immersed themselves in their game.
What child would give up on their fantasy alongside new friends just to linger near three grim Fates and their familiar-looking captive who looked on the colts with helpless eyes, knowing that he had no real power?
No, better to just keep playing the game.
Friends were such a rarity for each of them, after all.
The fog of these thoughts leaves you as you look down to see the faint but unmistakable outline of a single set of footprints in the path before you.
Eagerly you press on, savoring the sounds and smells of the forest once more as you walk with a renewed vigor.
The promise of perhaps finding a companion on your walk makes you smile.
You still don’t know why you are here, but you still feel no unease at the fact.
After some time the trees begin to crowd in around the path, the thick trunks and healthy leaves offering such dense cover that you feel almost as though you’re in a tunnel of green.
Only the upward glimpse of a clear blue sky gives you any hint that there are places beyond this path, that the world has not shrunk to simply this forward march.
You feel no fatigue in your limbs and your brow holds no sweat despite the long walk, but perhaps that is just because it must be spring, maybe early summer.
A pleasant coolness kisses your cheeks from the breeze every so often and the sun you cannot see warms the earth beneath your feet should you stop to press a hand to it.
Just as you idly begin to wonder if the trees will come to block your path in a dead end you see an opening up ahead and the muffled sound of moving water grows gradually more clear.
The path you walk brings you to a clearing at the edge of a steady river.
A few tall, twisted trees sit close to the water and the grass here is high.
Small violets and yellow dandelions litter the area in clusters along with patches of clover.
You can hear the soft buzzing of some unseen insects here and there, but none stray close enough to bother you.
Looking around with benign interest, you spot a patch of sun-warmed earth at the river’s edge and think briefly that it would make a good spot for a nap.
The thought that you aren’t even tired doesn’t dissuade you.
You are halfway to the spot before an unexpected noise stops you.
It is the soft strum of a guitar and your head turns as you try to pinpoint the source.
On the second strum you see him- a man in black sits in the embrace of one of the twisted trees, almost hidden in the shade.
The filtered sun catches strands of his dark hair, highlighting them in an almost raven-blue sheen and you feel familiarity suddenly seize your throat with a soft, strangled cry.
The tall grass whispers around your thighs as you hurry around the side of the tree to stand alongside the river, your steps finally halting as you gaze up to where he’s perched.
Terzo.
He looks younger than you’ve ever seen him.
No paint here, no suits or robes, no lines creasing his face or shadows lurking behind either eye.
He is simply a young, handsome man.
He holds a guitar in unweathered hands and wears only an open black shirt and black dress pants.
As he idly runs his fingers over the guitar strings he kicks a bare foot back and forth, nestled so comfortably in his seat at the heart of the branches.
He smiles at you in greeting, looking so comfortable in a way that you had only ever seen a handful of times before.
Before what?
“Don’t think on it, tesoro ,” His voice is clear and humorous, exactly as you remember it.
“It is a nice day here and I am very happy to have you visiting.”
You step closer, your mind suddenly muddled with too many thoughts.
You want very much to touch him, but his unexpected appearance and the confidence in his demeanor make you shy so you settle for putting your hand on the trunk of the tree.
The rough bark is cool in the shade and you trace a pattern in its surface as you speak.
“Where are we?”
Above you Terzo strums a gentle melody that you can’t place as he replies.
“The Arbors. Remember the spot I always said I wanted to bring you to one day?”
Some misty memory of long conversations tinged with colorful daydreams.
The promise of a picnic, getting away from stone walls to cavort in the water and forget the world while warming in the rays of the sun.
You shake your head slightly, troubled now for the first time.
“I don’t remember how I got here. Why didn’t you come with me?”
He considers the strings before replying, the pads of his fingers still pressing out a tune.
“You wouldn’t have gotten lost, tesoro . There is only one path in and I was listening for you.”
Your brow furrows as you look around, taking in his words and glimpsing the path that you took to get here.
Your thoughts are still jumbled and before you can offer a reply he slips down languidly from the tree.
He takes a moment to set the guitar against the trunk before grinning at you and shrugging off his shirt.
“Now that you are here we can finally go for that swim.”
This part of the river is relatively shallow so it’s not so much a swim as it is an exercise in creativity.
Nonetheless the two of you shed your clothes and spend the afternoon splashing, floating, laughing and talking about nothing.
Your thoughts don’t run too deep and you’re content to leave it that way- perfectly happy to be spending these treasured moments with the man you love.
Still, even within this safe little pocket of the here and now there are moments where you can’t help but just stop and stare at him.
He’s so young, so unburdened and open in an almost alien way.
You can dimly remember moments of bitterness and insecurity.
If you think just hard enough you can remember that there should be some streaks of silver hiding in his black mop, furrows in his forehead or even the scars on his body from his youth-
Almost as though he can sense it, each time your thoughts start to take their turn down these treacherous roads Terzo will splash you or suddenly point out the funny shape of a piece of bark drifting along the current.
Your mind will then focus once again on the present, on this wonderful time with him.
After some time he pulls you out of the glimmering water to lay down with him on the hard-packed earth in what could be the very same patch of sun that you had been headed towards before you discovered him earlier.
As you lay down beside him to dry you have the brief thought that that’s not possible since the sun would have had to have moved in the time that you’ve been here.
Laying shoulder to shoulder the two of you close your eyes and savor the warmth after the chill of the water.
It is silent and peaceful until Terzo speaks.
“If I haven’t said it enough, I’m very happy to have met you, tesoro .”
You grin, your eyes still closed as you reach out to wrap his fingers in yours.
“You’ve said it plenty.”
Memories flit about as though they’re the idle buzzing of the insects housed within the clearing.
Speaking casually for the very first time during your assigned shift in the secretarial office, trading jokes while he waited for his mail.
The first time he had asked you to dance during someone’s birthday party, your heart racing even though you knew what a flirt he was with everyone.
The grateful look on his face the first time you had arrived at his office door unprompted, toting his coffee order and a bottle of aspirin to help kill the hangover you knew he must be sporting after the previous night’s ritual.
Your first kiss… hidden away in the east garden after you had both escaped the same intolerable sermon from his father.
The way he held you that first terrible day when he had discovered you having a breakdown, so unable to come up with a solution.
So he had simply tucked you close in his arms and rubbed your back, murmuring soothing words.
It occurs to you now that there are the shadows of other people in those memories… That other people exist and you both come from a place other than this clearing and this river.
Terzo’s warm hand gives yours a squeeze and suddenly he’s pulling you atop him, your eyes opening to see him grinning up at you.
He looks like art.
His hair is still a damp riot of black, a glittering pool of water has collected in the sunken well of his chest and the gleam of his teeth hide just behind his full parted lips.
“You look like an angel with the sun shining behind you like this, miele .”
A snort leaves you as you reach down to smooth a few stray locks out of his face.
You want to tell him that he’s the one looking positively biblical, sinful rouge though he is- but then your eyes meet his and you stop.
They’re the same as they’ve always been- one green and one white.
But suddenly you find yourself transported back to when you were gazing up into a similar set through the fog of your own tears.
Your new Papa had stood alongside Sister Imperator and held your hand in his while the terrible news was delivered.
It was like you had suddenly lost the ability to do more than simply pull air in and out of your lungs.
So you just stared up into those eyes as your superiors continued to speak to you in low, soothing tones.
He was really gone.
Everyone at the Abbey had been told that the three Papas had taken a trip to visit the congregation in Italy where they had grown up.
It was a long-awaited trip that had been in the works for when Terzo was to retire, but you found it odd that the Cardinal had not gone along with them.
From there the excuses had begun coming thick and fast.
The trip had been extended. Primo had fallen ill and they couldn’t travel until he recovered. There was an issue with their passports. Secondo had run into trouble with the law overseas and it would take weeks to sort out. On and on and all the while you had heard not a peep from Terzo.
You had begun to suspect that something was amiss and had started to voice your concerns to anyone who would listen- and you weren’t alone.
Between Primos confidants, Secondo’s bevvy of lovers and Terzo’s admirers, Imperator had begun to decline phone calls and spent more and more time away from the Abbey.
Meanwhile the Cardinal was going on tour in Terzo’s place and while it wasn’t right, there was no denying that it had been a successful move.
Finally the day came when the news from the tour had leaked and made its way back to you and the others.
Copia had ascended while in Mexico and was your new Papa.
Frantically you had broken into Imperator’s office while she was away and had finally found the number for the Italian Abbey- only to feel your blood turn to ice as you were told what you had already suspected.
The brothers hadn’t paid them a visit in almost a decade.
With nowhere left to turn, you had sat in the office to await Sister’s return.
She had gone to the airport to bring Copia home and so it was the two of them that had found you in the office, tear-stained and beside yourself as you demanded the truth.
In their absence you had torn the office apart, hunting for any clue as to where your beloved had gone.
There were receipts for a tailor-different than the ones on-site and used by the clergy, quotes from a company that made custom glass coffins, the business card of a plastic surgeon in Los Angeles and a dozen other things that you couldn’t be sure were clues or not.
Initially Sister Imperator had staunchly refused to give you what you asked for, choosing insead to shout at you for your treatment of her office and digging into clergy records.
She threatened you with excommunication and hellfire until Copia had intervened, his voice soft and so full of sadness.
So Sister had finally calmed herself and they had sat you down to deliver the news.
You had stared up into those Luceferian eyes that reminded you so much of Terzo’s as the two of them told you a story of an assassination.
The three brothers had been together, their guards down and their ghouls called elsewhere- and some monsters with poison in hand and god in their hearts had taken them out in one fell swoop.
They told you this story and then waited, expecting you to have questions or to poke holes in their retelling- but the fight had left you by then.
You knew the moment they sat you down.
Some part of you had known even before that, but you had foolishly allowed hope to enter your body long ago.
It had acted as the marrow in your bones, keeping them strong and holding you upright each day.
It was the fuel that heated your blood and kept it flowing as time had passed and you had spent your idle time daydreaming about when you would see Terzo again.
Slowly now you become aware again of the feeling of his strong hands on your hips and the warm sun on your back.
Your eyes refocus and you look back down to where he lay beneath you.
The strumming of his guitar, the swimming in the river and the echoes of your shared laughter- all of those moments are still around you, but now it feels different.
Suddenly all of those horrible memories had been resurrected and manifested physically within you, causing your body to bend double and tears to spring to your eyes.
You clutch at the warm flesh beneath you and an animal-like sob leaves your lips as the full reality of what happened hits you again and again in relentless waves.
The blackest mass held in mourning of the ending of the Emeritus bloodline. The endless days spent locked away in your room, unable to face the world. The stomach-churning horror you felt when the purpose of the glass coffins was finally made clear…
Blinking away the stinging tears, you refocus on the impossible face of the man you love and the sweet, sad smile he is giving you as he holds you steady.
Pulling you down now to lay atop him, he strokes your back and presses a soft kiss to your temple.
“Shhh, tesoro, it's alright.”
You close your eyes and just listen to his voice.
“It was bound to happen, your remembering. But I did my best to keep it away as long as I could.”
He smells like the clearing- like the sun-warmed dirt and new leaves and somehow still there are traces of his favorite cologne, musky, dark and sweet.
“I’m glad I was finally able to show you this place. I was unable to come back for so long- did I ever tell you how I found it?”
He had, but you slowly shake your head anyway, perfectly content to feel the vibrations of his voice against your cheek as your breathing finally begins to slow and your sniffles grow less frequent.
“I came here with my brothers when I was little. La memoria è vecchia … but I was told I was around eight when it happened. My mother brought me because she was meeting two other women and they had sons of their own I could play with while they talked. I was excited because I didn’t have many friends of my own yet and where we lived there was no eh, nature.
It was all concrete apartments and trees that looked exactly the same- era così fottutamente spiacevole.”
You find you can smile again as you continue to listen to the familiar story, eyes open now but unseeing as you instead picture his narrative as it unfolds.
“Anyway- scusami. I was happy to come and happy to have some time spent while my mother was busy. She cursed the walk in because of her high heels, but I was ecstatic and kept running ahead along the path. Finally we arrive in the clearing and the first thing I see is two boys who look my age! They are standing near these trees and having an argument- the taller one looks like a brute and now I am shy. I am hanging back and wait for my mother to finally catch up and then I see the adults over to the left where those large rocks are. It is these two women and a man and they are staring at me as I stand.”
You can picture it so clearly- you had seen a couple pictures of him as a little boy before- small and shy but so charismatic when in the spotlight.
“My mother arrives behind me and pulls me along for a moment as she comes to talk to the women. They are both blondes, like her but it is the man that grabs my attention. I think to myself, ‘Is this my father?’ We have the same eyes and he seems the right age, but no. It is actually mi fratello ! Our Primo, da giovane, se riesci a crederci. I remember he gave me the kindest smile any adult had ever- I didn’t even know who he was yet but I trusted him immediately. My mother told me to go play with the other boys while the four of them talked about adult business and I saw that the boys were watching me now.”
You had never seen photos of the other Papas as young men, but your imagination as you listen does the job of filling in the gaps.
“I walk over and the bigger one asks me immediately if I am an Emeritus. Tch! Uno stronzo così piccolo, che cerca di intimidirmi fin dal cancello - I tell him I don’t know what that means and he scoffs at me with this disgust. But I notice that these two also have the same eyes as me and I get excited and ask them if we are related. I had no other family besides my mother- I thought this. The bigger one gestures to the other and says ‘ He isn’t, but I migh t be’. I see that it makes the one with the rodent’s nose embarrassed and it makes me brave.”
“So I told the big one to shove it and that I don’t care who is related- And then I ask them if they know how to play horses.”
Terzo chuckles beneath you.
“If you haven’t guessed by now, those two little idiots were our Secondo and Copia- brought to this clearing by their mothers the same as me. We were to meet for the first time while they discussed what was to be done with us now that all three of them were aware of their current and former petitions- cazzo, no perdonami- positions in our dear father’s life. And all this while poor Primo was there to represent him, having been raised by Nihil and grown up knowing his lot in life- one of his roles being to take on the tasks that the old man was too chicken shit to handle himself.”
Terzo’s arms come up to wrap around you and you close your eyes once more, savoring the warmth of him and once again feeling totally at peace.
“After that day plans would continue to be made for us to be relocated to our Abbey. We would have eh, specia l schooling, be looked after by Primo and his ghouls, finally meet Nihil and learn all about the dear dark church. We were to be separated from our mothers- quello era comunque il piano , but for me this was no real loss. Mine and Secondo’s were paid off and I doubt either were sad to see us go, given the stories I heard from my brother later. He only gave the appearance of un piccolo bastardo arrogante because his upbringing had been worse than mine.”
“We didn’t know any of this that afternoon though. That first day was good. It was all about us playing as horses. Secondo didn’t know the different kinds but was smiling when Copia and I told him he could be a steel-grey war horse. Copes’ had seen a suffolk on his drive in- its just a red horse- and decided that was what he wanted to be and I of course rounded us out as our black beauty, the eh, irony of the plot of which has not been lost on me.”
As his story ends, unease begins to creep back into you and you finally sit up, sliding off to sit beside him.
“What happens now?”
The sun still shines unmoving above the two of you, but you can’t help but feel a chill as Terzo gets up and retrieves his clothing, bringing you yours and getting dressed, all while not yet speaking.
You get up and don your own articles quickly, catching his eye and asking the question again as he retrieves his guitar from the base of the tree.
He leans against the trunk and resumes softly strumming the guitar as he finally answers.
“That’s up to you, tesoro. I was hoping you would visit with me here, but I cannot decide if you stay or not.”
You reach out to brush a lock of hair out of his eyes and he leans into your hand as you speak.
“I still don’t even remember how I got on the path to this place, Terzo.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“You could just come back home with me.”
“ Amore mio, I don’t want to give you more pain- but I think you already know that I cannot do that.”
At his words, you once again feel a chill and can’t help but notice your vision going blurry at the edges.
Is that the sound of the river growing louder?
You look to your left, but the water remains unchanged, the current moving along at its calm pace and the sun glinting off of its surface in a welcoming way.
The fogginess of your peripheral vision continues to creep in until you turn back to Terzo. Reaching out, you lift his guitar up out of the way and step forward to wrap your arms around his middle, pressing your face into his neck.
All at once, the displaced noise of rushing water dies out and you can hear the calm stream and idle buzz from the meadow once more. Your gaze is locked on the surface of the bark behind him and you find that your vision has cleared so you can see every detail.
Terzo gives a pleased hum and lowers his arms, giving you a long squeeze and savoring your combined warmth before resuming his strumming, keeping you caged in his embrace as he does so.
“Well, tesoro I guess eh, that’s that .”
You smile against his shoulder and listen as his idle strumming becomes a melody that you finally recognize beneath his words.
“Hey! Since you are here now maybe you can help me finally put the words to this idiot’s tune. It has been stuck in my head forever since I heard our Cardinal working on it when he thought I wasn’t around.”
He plucks at the strings with greater purpose, the tune already memorized and just waiting for you to finish the puzzle he had been working at.
“What are the words, amore mio ?”
“Can you hear me say your name, forever…”