Aloysius Esch

Aloysius dreams   March, 1899   He woke at the sound of the key in the lock and so did the dog. Aloysius tensed his muscles just as nine kilos of big-eared, black and white terrier launched from his midsection and charged the front door. He smiled; his family was home. Barking and the shrieks of children mingled at the door before reversing course in a headlong charge down the hall. Aloysius rolled to his knees from the couch to receive the onslaught with open arms. Anja, nine, hit first. She's the young image of her mother, but for the Esch blue eyes. She aimed to bowl him over because the concept of 'half' never stuck with her. He spun her sideways and caught her, then did the same with Melker, all of six. So clearly their son, marked with a mix of their skin and strawberry blond hair. Aloysius wrapped them up in his arms and kissed his giggling children before sending them in pursuit of the dog. He was still on his knees and smiling when one of the most powerful women in the world entered the parlor. Margarete Esch. Some fools think love fades with age but fifteen years after they wed, she was more radiant in his eyes than ever. Aloysius rises, kissing her like it's the first time.   Memory unbidden -Burning buildings and spell light throw everything in garish relief. Gunshots and spellcasting concuss the air, a drum beat beneath Peg's voice as she sends curses and spells into her erstwhile grandmother. She's glorious. Aloysius is on one knee, covered in blood. Some of it is his, most of it, not. May Muckbone is in front of him. She's been kissed by Ash Wand so many times there is barely anything holding her together. She's defiant, with one last barb to throw. "You're an idiot to love her." She hisses. "Do you know what you get when your kind mixes with ours?" Aloysius rises, Ash Wand kisses May one last time.   "The love of my life." He whispered into Peg's hair, before waking back to now.

He knew this was going to hurt and it was worth the cost. Blow after blow lands, nearly a dozen cuts open on his pale skin and the blood spray is visible as it leaves his body. When the paralysis drops from Peg, triumph fills his heart but drains as one of her spells is countered and the other resisted. Aloysius looks upon the shadowy flame of his wife and puts his faith in her, staying right where she needs him though it might cost his life.   The battle reaches a fever pitch as Aloysius, choosing to disregard his own safety, presses the attack on the elder Hag, bringing her down under a flurry of blows. The various Haglusions continue their vague cackling, somehow, despite the unconscious Hag, her wounds already beginning to stich back together the damp and swampy flesh.   Shadows gather around Violet for a moment, as they did around Nel earlier, but a mere shake of the head from the Confidante is enough to dispel them with ease.   Sensing that their 'granny' is dying, the Redcaps scream in frenzy. They lack the co-ordination of Gertrude directing them, their attacks becoming erratic, but what they lack in finesse they more than make up for in the sheer volume of of reckless, frenzied, strikes.   Violet's blade flashes and the swarm of Redcaps on Aloysius grows, the Monk shifting this way and take to dodge what blows he might but they surround him on every side.   There is a moment,a single moment, where the pace of the battle freezes as Peg calls out "Enough of this!" and a single, thin, beam of green light darts from her finger. The Elder Hag, slowly beginning to get back to her feet, has just long enough to scream - her Haglusions screaming in eerie echo, before they vanish and the Elder Hag, Gertrude Grindelwald, is reduced to little more than a pile of vaguely swampy smelling dust.   One of the Redcaps goes to join the swarm on Aloysius as he falls under the weight of the combined attacks and is stopped by Violet, but she cannot stop the second one - tiny clomping legs join massive ones as both the redcap and Nel race towards the warrior monk - one in hope of life and one in hope of death.   The first thing that prickles in at the edges of awareness is the thorns. Pinpricks spark white against the black void. The thorns snag in clothes and hair. They draw thin, brilliant lines of pain across his hands and cheeks. When he opens his eyes, he finds barbed vines embracing on all sides, like the myriad arms of a verdant lover. Aloysius Esch, the Relentless Gale, lies entombed.   He shifts, feeling thorns pierce and dig into pale skin. It hurts, but he doesn't mind so much. Thorns are a memory of home. Of life. Of love. Her. He relaxes into the pain, blue eyes in the dark, reaching out with every sense. Heart aching so hard it knots in his throat. The air here is still, silent, but not stagnant. The scent of his own blood warms the back of his throat with a burn like iron bourbon. But this is not Aloysius' drink of choice - at least, not without her here to share it. So he reaches beyond it, searching for any other sign of life.   He finds it in the distant, slow throb of wingbeats. Whatever creature possesses wings large enough for those incomprehensibly slow, concussive beats, it is far away yet. He gets the sense it will not remain so far away for long.   "Are you coming for me?" he asks the darkness. It takes an effort to make the words, not from fear, no not that at all. That burning at the back of his throat, the hurts of a body and heart that have been asked for too much, they slow him. But he asks more because quitting isn't in him. "Is it that time?"   That distant, inimical presence slows. Pauses. Turns - and Aloysius feels the weight of a million years of inexorable darkness in its regard. "Have you finally decided to give in?" Morwen's voice rolls across the space between them like distant thunder. "If so, then lie still. I will come to you, and we will finally make an end of your suffering."   Aloysius feels the weight of that build. That pressure of ages that no mortal could ever resist, so he doesn't and lets it pass through him. Whatever fears and hurts he's ever faced, emptiness hasn't been his burden. It's just nothing. "Give in? No." he replies. "It's just pain. The memories of love and life are so much bigger than that."   The concussive ripple of wingbeats draw closer across the void. "They are nothing beside me," he growls. "You think you will be remembered? Dust does not recall its time as flesh. You think your love a bonfire, when nothing will ever come of it but ash."   He remembers, feels. Eriu showed him so many lives. Each ending in death and loss... so much loss. But so much more than that. "Everything ends, it's part of the cycle. Ash makes for new growth afterward. Don't you remember?"   "Then you do surrender." Morwen's wingbeats are the languid thunder of a summer storm, low in the sky and closing in. "Whether you admit that to yourself or not is of no consequence to me, but it may make your final moments easier to bear."   He finds a laugh in him somehow. "You're not listening. The only thing I surrender to is Her and that's a sharing, really. Don't you remember growth? What it's like to make something?" The questions are offered in kindness. He tries... tries to hold space for Morwen's heart.   The vines whisper more tightly around Aloysius' limbs, seizing any chance of escape along with them. They cradle him in their shadowy arms, caressing him with a touch that stings and burns, for all that it seems to wish to be gentle. "I do," rumbles the Dragon at the End of the World, as his shadow falls over the entombed monk. "You cannot comprehend the wonders I will craft from your bones. Do not pity that you will not live to see them." World-devouring wings flare over Aloysius' head. They blot out the sky. The thorns bite at his hands, his wrists, his arms...but the blood that flows from his wounds is flowing, suddenly, back up the assaulting spines, gathering at their nodes, bursting into roses as red as blood.   It is just roses at first. Red like his blood. Then vines. Green like her skin. The vines that bind him are suddenly filled with a familiar presence...his wife. Peg's magic is unmistakable to Aloysius. He has felt it burn his skin and reverberate as it tears into their enemies. Now, he feels it rush into his body. It surges into his veins through open wounds like fire...fire that calls him home. It is not a gentle healing, not the kind that comes with soft words and softer touches. It is a healing of fury, of defiance, that demands the push through the pain to what is on the other side. His wife's voice echoes around him as shadows swirl up to meet the darkness that blots out the sky. "Give me back my husband!"   He knows the touch of Her power. The woman he loves, has always loved, is no dewy-eyed thing of unmarred porcelain. A river of life and blood and danger rips through him and he screams in pain, in love, in ecstasy, reaching with his heart for his torrent of shadow and flame. "Tell me, Morwen." his hand extending to Peg, power flowing into him, life in his veins. "Have you ever been loved like this? Have you ever been kissed? It changes everything."   Whatever Morwen might have answered, whatever rage he might have brought down upon them, is lost in a dizzying whirlwind of shadow and blood-red rose petals. There is no kiss to waken Sleeping Beauty from his bed of briars. But there is the fire in his veins and the darkness about his shoulders, the thorns biting at his heart - and there is the promise of one waiting for him when he follows them all home.

Aloysius is away. It was planned so that he could help Veronika with her exploration of N'Maernthor, but still it's bittersweet to be away from one's spouse for a birthday. When Peg comes downstairs, a box a couple of feet high awaits her on a parlor table. A note that could only be for her, penned in her husband's bold hand, rests against the box. It is addressed simply, My Font...   Beloved Peg, We knew I would be away for this day, your twenty-fourth birthday. Yet, I am still saddened as I write this for being unable to awaken next to you, to start the day with the sound of your breath and see the morning light give color back to your lips and skin and hair. I see beauty in every aspect of you. In your shadow and flame, your scars and the curve of your lips... the tangled, thorny places of your heart filled with love and hurt and every burning passion. All of you, I'll gladly hold with my hands and heart and come back to you every time. I hope this gift lets you see what my heart does.   Now and always, your Aloysius   She can smell the olive wood even as she lifts the covering box. A sculpture, unmistakably of her. Sensual in every sense, the swirls and polish capturing motion, feminine form, and extravagant power. She's in mid step, mid turn, hair whipping with the vibrance of combat. Flames fill her left hand, shadows wreath her right. Clad in little more than her power and passion, this Peg is as undaunted as the real one. She has a face her husband has seen in his dreams and by his side as spellfire and shadow fill the air. With curving lips apt for curses and hard truths and loving words. It's a love poem coaxed from fragrant wood. Her scars and beauties reflected in harmony, a view of her through the lens of her husband's heart.

The garden, late, so very late.   His heart was paining him. It took some time to get home but they did and bed was a desperately needed comfort. They had talked some little while, holding each other. Hurts began to fade but the events of the night were still too present. The wave of healing from Riley fixed his body but not the memories of the way his flesh was no longer his. It did nothing at all to soothe the wounds in his mind.   Sleep came. For her, anyway. Aloysius lay a long time listening to Peg's breath and the snores of half-grown cats. He rose quietly, not touching her, though he wanted to. This sleep was hard earned and too much had been taken today. Bare feet on woven rug, the rustle of his robe. He kneels to the pack of blink dogs, whispering. "Roni, Fay, please watch over her. Kagh, you can come with me if you want.", so grateful he can touch their essence and they can understand one another. Quietly down the stairs he goes, Kagh passing him through the in between. An Autumn quarter moon greets him in the garden, high walls and a sleeping city granting space for his troubled soul. His feet whisper on the flagstones. This garden is a holy place for him. He's never said the words out loud. It's not a secret, really, but more than herbs and flowers have grown here; he has. The work of his hands and heart have shaped this island, a sanctuary for both of them. Love and laughter and the life they've shared have made this ground fertile. The air is barely warm enough to keep his breath from pluming as he closes his eyes to the sky. His robe drops to clean-swept stone. Naked to the night, but for a vining tattoo and the promises on his hand, tears streak his upturned face. He's not a villain but Haarkon had so easily set him upon that knife edge, had so cruelly used him. Close, so close to murder on the say so of alchemy and malice whispered in his ear. So easily ripped from his path of love and justice, empathy and caring. Tears bitter with failure. Hands and feet move, hips with them in the proper line. The first steps of a killing dance... but it's not just for killing. Breath and motion... a rhythm of life in him. Balance. Nude and supple as a cat, he fills the space with motion. An exuberance with no room for faltering or doubt. His body cuts the air then connects to the ground, his passionate heart is expressed through power and grace. There is nothing out here that he can't break, but this is a place of growing. Life waxes and wanes here with the seasons and it's a place of loving. He lets it fill him, a balm for healing wounds.   In time he slows, stops. The heat from his body steams in the cool night, skin as pale as the moon. It's a healing of sorts, the wounds on his soul no longer weeping.   He collects his robe and pads silently upstairs under Kagh's watchful eye. A pause to wet a cloth and wipe himself clean before sliding in behind Lady Esch, clad as he was earlier, his cares just a little lighter.

A letter has arrived at the Esch estate. There are flowers from nowhere near Europa pressed into the paper and it smells faintly of exotic spices.   Mother, Father, I hope this letter finds you well. Peg and I are in Bharat right now, the holy city of Benares, where we have purchased a house. It's been a beautiful place to spend our time when we are here and has also served as an impromptu setting for a war council in the Magnificent Kingdoms. I am certain that you are apprised of the developing situation in the region. The armies of naga, the gigantic snake. It's all true and we are in it. As deeply as I was never supposed to be in public life, we are in this, fighting monsters and godlings.   I won't pretend, we are in danger, but the world is in more. You always taught me to work from the shadows, but life has outgrown that. Both Peg and I are famous here, as are our friends. In Eisen, too, it seems. Fighting dragons and fiends, saving lives and consorting with royalty, all of these things challenge obscurity. I suppose marrying the most distinctly beautiful woman in all of Novandria didn't help either, not that I would change that choice. All of that is to say that life has forced me to outgrow the shadows. I believe in the work and will continue it, but the original mask has slipped, and it doesn't fit any more.   Such an odd thing to have to apologize for denying you a wastrel son. I believe in our goals and will find other ways to accomplish our work. The stakes have grown so large for Eisen and the world that I have to walk the larger stage for a while. I love you and I believe in you. We'll find a way.   Your son, Aloysius

He's been careless. Getting sloppy. Aloysius is somewhat famous now. He never should have been. At most, an embarrassment to family, a wastrel. Nobody worth noting except to shake heads and cluck tongues with sympathy to his parents and siblings. That was the mission, his mask so he could work in the shadows. But he couldn't hide from every eye. He couldn't stand aside from dangers and watch things burn so he could work in the dark. Or let people die he could save. Or let the guilty maintain sway. It hurts him and he has to do something.   Careless.   Venowin's stalking and threats, his near murder of Nel and Zayn merged with Aloysius' need to remove the source of problems... and it outran his feet. His heavy hand was careless of the trap of the law, a trap he had no right to avoid, killing a paladin of Caelus in the alley like that. He didn't regret the killing, that didn't scathe him at all. He had done his diligence, offered a way out, and then they finished it. It was the failure of discretion.   The intervention at the matchstick factory was clumsy. It was right but walking around with his own face. Confronting Dare Hendrix as himself, even without names got him recognized and he couldn't kill the man just for being an ass. Besides, he agreed to fix the problems.   The situation in Bharat was even worse for his disguise. All of them are genuinely famous there, even the villains have names for them. The Relentless Gale... with any luck neither Duchess Mockingbird nor his parents would ever hear of that. So much work on the verge of ruin because he couldn't live a quiet life. But...

She was limp in his arms. No fire, no shadow, just empty.   Nevermore and Violet called to him as he held her, hands and heart trembling. Love and violence howled in his veins... grief. Tears fell on cooling skin as he leaned to kiss her, his blood mixing with hers. His pulse pounding alone.   He stirred under the urging of friends and the need to get back what was most precious. The wound he had torn wide when the vampire came to feed began to close. Aloysius had nothing left to lose when she fell, ripping his spear-pinned body from the wall to beat Count Rhodar into mist. But it wasn't done... wasn't done. Life and breath touched her lips as he stood, Aloysius leaving to kill or die with the taste of her in his mouth.   They hunted, Lord Esch followed, his heart left behind to guard Nel and Peg in death. What path they found; he'll never know. All he remembers is standing over Rhodar's crypt with sunlight streaming from Violet's sword and Nevermore offering a stake. It wasn't right. It wasn't enough, but he knew what was. Ashwood, silver shod and enchanted. The shock of the blow against the sarcophagus stung deep in his hands but the breaking wood left him with what he needed, a loss-sharp stake to drive into the heart of darkness. He hammered it home with his weeping hands.   ...   He carried her until he couldn't, rigor making her unwieldy in his arms. The feeling of her stiffening body another scar in him. He laid her in the cart next to Nel for the long walk back. No comfort but the slow scatter of the vampire prince's ashes on the trail, drifting a pinch at a time on the wind. His tears, he stored for later. Soon, he'll know what comes next. Either his only love will be living and in his arms, or he'll take the trip to hell to have her back from Tanith.              

A journalist. A purveyor of words and facts; a teller of true stories in print for all and sundry. Margarete Esch, journalist. When she told him, there was fear in her that he would think it too small a thing. They settled that matter right quickly and now the last of the third-floor rooms was an office for her, fully appointed, including a broad and sturdy desk and promises to knock things from the corner of it now and then. A journalist. Writer. Creator. She had accepted his gift and raised the ante, wanting something to be shared between them. "...I want a space in the garden, for both of us, for when there is the work of reading and writing to be done but when the rest of my heart needs sights and smells of flowers and fresh air and my husband." She touched his heart with that. Now, with the first weeks of Spring turning, he's been able to get workmen out to start on things. There isn't tremendous room in the garden. The only real option is to modify the gazebo that has been the scene of many important moments. He watches as the workers set to. Memories echo.   The slimness of her waist under his hands. "I fear that I have fallen in love with you and if you don't kiss me right now, I shall be very cross."   A gift of oleander   a pair of rings "one heart, one fire, one blood"   His heart and mind are full of important moments as they reshape the shelter. For Peg's wish, they build in a shared desk with two sides, each a little offset from the other; close, yet with enough room to breathe and work. Planters are added to the supports, raising flowers into their space. Prepared pots of crocuses and iris are hung up carefully where they can surround the couple with life. It's going to be beautiful.   Aloysius walks about the garden and finds himself drawn to the back corner. Oleander, foxglove, houndstooth - The season's too early and none are in bloom; their potency abides. His mind drifts between beauty and peril. His body is whole, his worst wounds are on his heart. Some have healed, some are scarred. Some are still tender and weeping; they catch him against his will.   ...mind violated, adorned in the blood of his foes and the salt of his tears   ...the right side of her face is covered in blood and her left shoulder and arm are badly burned... the disconnected lost sort of look in her eyes is more concerning   ...her throat an open ruin and her belly slit, contents spilling. Her eyes empty, her fire extinguished   He closes his eyes and reaches for his center. It takes time but the weight of the rings on his hand pulls him back. Life is so often in perilous balance. His own, those of the people he loves, the lives that he might take. The path through his passions and fears and dreams is still fraught but his feet are becoming firmer upon it. The edge of might or might not recedes; he finds a touch of peace in the simplicity of what is.