Love is Always Write Anthology Volume 2

stopped walking. "You mean does the binding force me to obey unspoken commands regardless of my own inclinations?"
    Tam stopped with him, raking a hand through his hair. " Not your first language . I think you speak it better than I do, now."
    "I'm good with my tongue."
    Tammas tore through several expressions, finally settling on alarm-bordering-on-laughter.
    Aeron repressed a grin. "Command me to do something. Something you really want me to do."
    "Kiss me."
    Aeron examined his feelings. He would like to kiss Tam, yes. He had a very sweet mouth, and the prettiest pair of lips he could recall having kissed, which was saying quite a lot. However, it caused him no pain at all to stand perfectly still and say, "No."
    Tammas set his jaw. "Now."
    His determined face was charming, which made it more regrettable but no more difficult. Aeron thought to try it the other way round. "Make me."
    Tam's eyes bulged. "Gods, no!"
    "I can't influence you, either, then." He paused to let his meaning sink into the man's thick skull before changing the subject. He'd known since those long, miserable days sitting in a tree and waiting for this beautiful idiot to come to terms with the reality of him . But he thought he deserved to hear it, all the same. "You feel me too, don't you?"
    Tam's shoulders slumped. "I— I wanted to tell you. But I thought you'd just smirk and say you already knew."
    Aeron smirked. "Because I did. And my voice?"
    Tammas made a meal of his fine lower lip. "Yes."
    Aeron watched and enjoyed, but was in no danger of losing track of this conversation. "How long have you heard it?"
    "Since..." Tam swallowed visibly and started walking again. "Perhaps before, but certainly since my mother died. I thought— even Kamala said it was just something I did to keep myself company. Away from the other boys."
    "What other boys?"
    "At the monastery school. My father died not long after her, and he left a scholarship for me. Or so they said. The other boys were rich and, well, they knew what I was."
    Aeron cocked his head, confused.
    "You know." Tam hung his head so his shaggy, shiny hair covered his eyes. "That I like to be naked. With other boys."
    Someday, Aeron intended to find out if all of humanity was this unintelligible, or just his human. "I'd think some of them would be glad of it."
    "Some were, yes. Very glad." Tam began to smile, but sobered quickly. "When we were alone, anyhow. Publicly, they pretended to like girls."
    "Do you like girls?"
    "Well, I like them. But I don't like them. Not like that." Tammas peeked out from behind his hair. "Do you?"
    "Yes." Aeron shrugged and fluttered. "Some do, some don't."
    Tam heaved a great sigh. "You don't understand."
    "I'd be more worried if I did."
    The sigh turned into a frustrated sound. "It doesn't matter. I'm different. Different is never safe, remember?"
    "That much I do understand." He suspected he didn't understand it as deeply as Tammas, but he could use his imagination. It would be more accurate than trying to get Tam explain while he was in this state. "When did your mother die?"
    "Twenty years ago next moon."
    "That sounds very near to when it began for me," Aeron admitted.
    "Oh."
    As they walked on, Aeron mulled the conversation over in his mind, still absently searching for useful wild plants. He smelled some cloves, but nothing spectacular, and some fine, white mushrooms deeper in the forest. He would pick them on their way home; Tam's cooking still wasn't brilliant, but it had improved, at least.
    Eventually Tammas asked, "Are you angry with me for not telling you sooner?"
    The question surprised Aeron— or perhaps the answer did. "Not angry, I think. Curious. Annoyed. I want to know why you waited." He hadn't wanted to ask just then. A cup of sweetmint tea would relax Tam and untie his tongue.
    Patience had never been Aeron's crowning virtue, but perhaps he'd improved in some ways, too. Sitting in a tree for a sevenday would do that, he supposed.
    "That's— that's what I wanted to tell you last night," Tammas said. "But I think it's better to show you, or you might not believe."
    Somehow, Aeron did not like the sound of that.
    ****
    He was oddly unsurprised when Kamala placed the aged parchment on the table. He recognized the white flower magic-scent on it, but now he was nearer, it tickled something else in his mind. It was some sort of compact, and the signatures were still binding. One was almost completely faded, a hint of lemon peel overpowered by the