V. H. King's Ink

“You hold my heart,” Wilt said, clasping Hanji’s hands. “Wherever you go, I send my love with you.”

“You have my soul.”  Hanji’s words are steady and sure.  “My spirit accompanies yours, that we may always be one.”

Wilt rests his head on Hanji’s.  He is forever humbled by Hanji’s quiet certainty—that their love will last beyond this life.  That their lives will not be too short to accomplish their dreams.  Hanji believes in so many things, and this is something else that amazes Wilt.  Fills him with wonder and care and a promise: to be, to do, to love the best he can. 

“Be not afraid,” Wilt whispers, more to himself than to Hanji.

“Know your fear for what it truly is,” Hanji said, kissing Wilt’s cheek.  “The need to hope above all odds is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Wilt looked into Hanji’s eyes.  The tunnel is lit by only a few torches, but they have these moments to themselves.  Flames dance in Hanji’s eyes, and Wilt is certain Hanji can hear feel the beating of his heart as he leans forward and presses a quiet kiss to his lover’s lips.  Hanji’s hand reaches up.  A thumb brushing his cheek.  Fingers curled around the back of his neck.  Wordless promises that Wilt swears he will cherish and honor forever. 

Hanji pulls away, leaving Wilt breathless.  Not a wrinkle on that brow or Hanji’s cloak.  Wilt smiles ruefully, but doesn’t look away.  Hanji moves him so deeply, and yet seems to be as steady as a mountain.  But a mountain is more than rock and stone; Wilt knows the winds of worry that twist through the branches and bend the trees on those hills. 

“I will return,” Wilt promised. 

“And I will be with you—there, and again here.”

---

In a cruel twist of events, Hanji’s soul could have been trapped in Tosh’s body.  Would that be worse for Hanji or for himself?  Wilt wasn’t sure—and he didn’t care to think of how Tosh might relish torturing the two of them with that sort of twisted magic, were it possible.  It could be possible, he supposed; there were such things as spells and works without logical explanation.  Miraculous disasters, haunted happenings, atrocities committed out of sheer desperation for a chance at hoping again…

The flames have long-died in the hearth.  Wilt does not stir from the armchair.  Tosh knows better than to stoke the fire again.  Instead he brings another blanket and places it around Wilt’s shoulders, along with a kiss at his cheek. 

He should be grateful that Tosh saved his life, but he hadn’t wanted to live this way.  He didn’t want to be a king, he only wanted peace.   And although he had achieved that for his country, he had nothing of it himself.  So what was all this gold and glory worth?

He supposed he could squander wealth, or hoard resources.  He preferred modesty and generosity, trading with neighboring countries for fair prices and ensuring his people were well-provided for.  But were they his people?  What devotion would they have to him, other than their temporary satisfaction?  Minds could be turned and hearts could be changed, but what would last?

“I know you never loved me, and I will not ask for you to,” Tosh said quietly.  “But consider caring for the child Hanji left you.”

“Hanji left you—is that the point you’d like to remind me of as often as possible?”

“If you blame yourself for it, I cannot do much to convince you otherwise.”

A knife in a pocket.  That’s all it had been, and for what?  Had that been the very blade that had turned and pierced Hanji’s heart?  Was it just the thought of murder that condemned a person, rather than the act?  The intention mattered, regardless the impact.  Would Hanji have let him kill Tosh?  Wilt was never sure.  It was harder to tell, even, if Hanji would have killed Tosh.  In one way or another. 

“You know how it feels to be abandoned,” Tosh said.  “Would you do the same to your young?”

“Hanji didn’t abandon me,” Wilt snarled.  “You took him from me.  You took everything.”

“And I will give it back to you, if you’d only keep your head long enough to live and see it.”

“You think a child will fix this?  You dare place that burden—”

“I dare nothing, other than to hope for the day when you stop waiting to die.  There is plenty left for you—”

“I don’t want any of it!  I don’t want anything, except—”

Tosh grabs his hand, palm pressing to palm.  Fingers gripping his tight.  Wilt jerks away by instinct, hating the touch of Tosh’s skin against his own.  Hating the nights he craves any touch that would mimic Hanji’s and knowing none will do.  Wilt throws off the blankets and stalks to the other side of the bed.  His palm still burns. 

The nail fits perfectly there.  A bent spike, too short to begin with.  The one that had been the weakest point on the bridge and caused the collapse.  A train he should have never taken.  A wreck he had no business surviving. 

You lived. 

Yes, he had lived.  And Hanji hadn’t—except Hanji had promised.  To be with him, wherever he went and whenever he returned.  Tosh had a point.  It was cruel of him to abandon a blameless child when he himself knew how much that punishment hurt, even when it was deserved.  But how could he escape his grief?  How could he untangle himself from all his self-loathing and his hatred for Tosh and find love for his child?

Love was not obsessive.  Love was not possessive.  He wanted the child to have whatever future they wanted, free of undue expectations.  He did not want to impose any role or rule on them. 

But love was not absence.  Love was not neglect.

You lived, that rail spike reminded him. 

Perhaps he had only lived half-heartedly, so far.  Out of a sense of duty, since the people had made him king.  A crown he had never wanted, but if he hadn’t accepted the throne, the suspicion would mark him guilty no matter Tosh’s claims.  He would have had to watch his country tear itself apart.  He couldn’t have done that, after Hanji. 

Wilt slid to the floor, his back against the wall.  Knees drawn up, head tilted into his palms.  Rough hands that had once known how to fight.  He’d been a man of arms out of necessity.  Hanji had been of the arts—music, poetry, paintings.  And what would the child take up?  Gardening and landscape?  Architecture or smithing?  What might they do—and could Wilt let himself live long enough to see it?