In Which Searle Is Shielded from the Folds

July 12, 1173

It was to Searle's advantage that his father was not of the early-to-bed variety. It was well past midnight and his siblings had either been sent to bed or had retired out of their own free will. Even his stepmother would be finishing off her bedtime rituals by this point, and she was something of a night owl herself.

But his father was still awake, even if not quite so alert as to notice Searle's entrance. "Father?"

"Mmm?" His father turned his head, the rest of his body following. Searle's boots were leaden and burdensome, but he forced himself to plow forward.

"Father? Can I ask you something?"

Thick lashes tumbled downward over the brown and bloodshot white. Several seconds passed before they rose again. "Always."

It was a funny word that could never be said in earnest, but Searle took the opening anyway. He had been thinking about this long enough and it was about time he got it over with--lead-filled boots or not. "I was... wondering if you would find me a wife?"

And yet, in spite of all his consideration, his own daring caught him off-guard. He clenched his eyes shut as he awaited the answer and wasn't surprised when no ironic promise of 'always' waltzed into his ear. But nor did he hear a yes, and nor did he hear a no. What he did hear was not so much an answer as a question of its own. "You're not even sixteen yet, Searle. You have plenty of time to find yourself a wife if you care to do so."

"Yes, but I was thinking I'd like to be knighted early and to go live in that castle you promised me." He had been, even before he's started thinking about marriage. It wasn't a lie. Searle couldn't lie to save his life, regardless of whether or not his existence was little more than that. "You could use someone to look after those lands for you."

"Yes, and you're perfectly capable of doing so on your own."

Damn his own capabilities, then--not that he felt capable of much. He couldn't think of a further argument. He couldn't lift his own feet and he could barely meet his father's eye. He couldn't even get the star in his sky to say three stupid little words that any toddler could produce unprovoked. "But, err... I don't want to be left behind? Everyone else has a wife..."

His father didn't seem impressed with that logic. "Searle, just because Jadin has a wife and a beautiful little girl doesn't mean that he's any more of a man than you are."

He felt a tear well in his eye--not that it was a surprise. He'd been crying too often lately, too easily. He'd held it all back for so long and the tears had grown prone to leaking. His head bowed, Searle looked through blurry eyes to his lonely, ringless finger. "It isn't about Jadin."

"No. It's about Sparron."

Searle's head jerked upward as if pulled by an invisible rope, the tears falling out of existence as the fabric of the universe folded inward. Had he just... did he... surely he did not mean...? No. No, he couldn't have... no! He didn't! It wasn't possible!

But it was. He did. "You know?"

The last piece of his heart burst as his father nodded. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let that slip, since it seems to have upset you, but now that I have..." He didn't say it, but it didn't matter. The folds of the universe had folds of their own.

And those folds were too much to bear. "I'm sorry!" Searle pressed his hand to his face and began to sob. It figured that of all the things the world could give back, his tears were the first it chose. "I never meant for it to happen! It just d-did! He just wanted to learn how to k-kiss so he could impress C-Camaline, and I--he--we--" He let the thought hang as he succumbed to his own bawling. His father had already filled in all the other blanks, and why should this one be any different?

"Searle..."

"P-please don't hate me!" He let his hands drop for a second, freeing himself from the flood of his own tears. "I never meant to d-do it! Please don't send me to a m- a monas--"

Between the layers of moisture he saw his father raise his hand. Searle shrunk away, expecting a blow--but it never came.

Instead, the hand landed gently on his shoulder, the thumb rubbing back and forth with a tenderness he'd forgotten. The frequent folding paused. "You," his father muttered as Searle fought to catch a breath between cries, "are the sweetest, kindest, most endearing boy in the world, and the last person who should ever be locked up in some grimy old monastery."

His eyes snapped open, clear if only for a minute, as his father pressed a kiss to his brow. "You don't hate me?"

"Never."

The hand moved to pull back Searle's hair, but he flung himself toward his father's torso before it could. He was scared and hurt and barely more than a baby and the world would only hold itself together as long as he was in his father's arms. "Why?"

"Because you're my son and I love you." Searle's tears fell into soft bed of navy surcoat as his father's embrace tightened. "Do you really need any more of an answer than that?"

He turned himself away and nodded. His father brought his brow to rest at the back of Searle head and sighed. "You have your mother's eyes. The way you look at him is the way she used to look at me."

Searle didn't know how to respond to that apart from crying some more. His father massaged him with one hand and held the cold, cruel world at bay with the other. "I know you're hurting. I wish I could make it all better."

Searle choked back yet another sob and wiped his eyes with his sleeve. "You could if you found me somebody."

His father swallowed, the sound audible but only just. "Searle..."

"I mean it." A stew of emotions stirred within the pit of his stomach, all the guilt and anger and contempt he'd kept hidden for so long boiling over in a hot, bubbling mess. "I swear, sometimes I... I hate him! I hate him, and then I hate myself for loving him! And I keep going back because I'm so weak, but he's even weaker and I have to be strong for both of us and I... I just... hate him!" The bitterness in his own voice was too much for him. Lip trembling, he collapsed back into his father's shoulder and bawled. His father wore his tears like battle scars. "Please find me someone else. I don't care who. I just want the pain to go away."

The arms around him tightened as he drained himself of all the moisture his eyes possessed. It was both a minute and forever before his father spoke again. "You really want me to find you someone?"

Searle let the last tears fall to his father's surcoat, then stepped back and nodded. "More than anything."

"And you're sure you and Sparron can't talk this out?"

His hand curled into a fist at the sound of the name. He couldn't believe the extent of his own pent-up rage, but that which was aimed at Sparron was a relative little. If anything, he thought he knew how Sparron felt. "Sparron doesn't talk."

His father took a minute to process. He was taller than Searle only by a handful of inches, but he was every bit as monumental as he'd been when Searle had stared up at him from the depths of his crib. "I see. Searle, I do think that you're distraught and you might be making a hasty decision, but the last thing I want is for you to be in pain. How about this: you think about all of this for a few more weeks, and if you're sure that what you want is for me to find you a wife, then ask me again on the last day of the month."

"And you'll start asking around?" The end of the month wasn't so far away. He'd lasted this long, hadn't he? What was another few weeks on top of everything?

"Searle, I promise you," his father insisted, taking him by the hand and squeezing it softly, "that if you ask me again on the last day of the month, then I will personally ride forth and not return until I've found you the most perfect girl you could ever imagine."

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