Miles of frost —

[tessarine]

The sound of familiar footsteps in the corridor lifted Woden's head from his work, and he leaned back in his chair with a soundless sigh and set down the brush. "Felix," he began before the man even stepped through the doorway, the next footfall a beat late in the cadence of surprise, "how is your art?"

"My... what?" Felix frowned. It wasn't an unexpected expression on him — Woden had made him frown for countless reasons before, and no doubt would continue vexing him for several years to come — but this time it passed quickly. Felix gave a grunt of understanding and found his stride again, crossing the room to set a cup of tea beside Woden's elbow with blithe disregard for the usual organized chaos of his desk. Matching cup in hand, he half perched against Woden's chair with the self-possessed grace of one of his cats, his folded leg settled over the arm of it in casual encroachment into Woden's space. "Oh. Sword or bow?"

"...Painting." At Felix's incredulous look, which had clearly been refined from the stare Zoltan II used when underwhelmed by the contents of his food bowl, Woden briskly added, "or pencils."

"No."

Despite himself, a corner of Woden's mouth twitched; he saw the answering flash of amusement in Felix's eyes, swift and smug as winter lightning, before he hid the expression behind an almost prim lift of his teacup. Even in this, Woden could see traces of that swordmaster temperament: the justified pride in his skill, the keen awareness that the opponent he'd scored a touch against was a formidable one. Although, truthfully, Woden was less certain by the day that he was formidable any longer. His emotions ran so close to the surface, those little currents of happiness leaping like his pulse did every time Felix's fingertips brushed soft and vulnerable places Woden allowed so few other people near: the inside of his wrist, the unguarded nape of his neck, the curve of his shoulderblades when he allowed them to relax from the constant, proper poise required of an emperor.

"Why're you asking, anyway? This some new form of paperwork you're trying out?"

Felix lowered the cup and reached for one of the delicate sheets of rice paper laid out on the desk, lifting it to squint at it dubiously. Woden watched over his cup as his boyfriend — lover — consort — no title ever sat fully right in his mind, but he savored each one for a moment in the privacy of his thoughts — as Felix scrutinized the artful scrawl of calligraphy down the page. He knew Felix couldn't read the characters even if they'd been printed rather than calligraphy; ancient Bifrost script hadn't seemed a very high priority on the list of things to acclimate Felix to, since his arrival in this world. Taking another sip of the tea, something heavy and spicy on the tongue, he translated idly.

"It's a poetic idiom for health and strength of will, and of character. Calligraphy is a tradition in Bifrost. The first one of the new year will be burned, so the sparks may carry it to Dana."

His voice fell easily into the brisk cadence of lecturing, cool and instructive. He wasn't consciously redirecting the subject — but perhaps some old habits of diplomacy were rusted inseparably onto his soul, too firmly now to be chipped off without shattering the steel beneath. Felix cocked his head slowly; Woden wondered what mysteries the calligraphy revealed to him from this new angle. The expression made him look remarkably like Seigetsu did, just before he pushed a stack of Woden's papers deliberately and maliciously to the floor.

"It's a week till the new year, isn't it?"

Woden hummed acknowledgment of this and tipped his head back to glance up at Felix. Strangely, it was a feeling that had become more familiar since getting his body back, though he once again stood taller than both Felix and Baldr. Felix hadn't seemed otherwise displeased with the transformation from the Nuadha he had known. "You're still you," he had said, on that day that he broke through the last of Nuadha's battered and worn-down defenses; and Woden had never doubted for a moment that those words were as unfaltering and unbreakable as the Fraldarius shield. But they did not, apparently, preclude Felix finding these little ways to offset the difference in height. That, or he had simply absorbed Hayate's predilection for high places. As long as he didn't also absorb Hayate's predilection for pouncing onto the heads of unsuspecting passerby from those high places, Woden could only be amused.

"It's the most important holiday to Bifrost. I was..."

Daydreaming, he realized, nearly with a start. The preparations for the public aspects of the celebration were important for the morale and cohesion of the newly-restored, patchwork empire he had found in his hands. But much of that work had been handed off to Thorsten to delegate to new officials. What Woden had been pushing around his desk could hardly be called anything but personal. Perhaps some habits of his odd two year stint not as the crown prince, not as the descendant and not-quite-surviving remnant of Dana's priesthood, but as a lone man commanding no more than the loyalty of a small militia force had instilled different habits in him. Like Felix, who was slowly shedding the mantle of Duke Fraldarius and growing into a simple swordmaster who swore his loyalty only to two men and the five cats he was increasingly coming to resemble, Woden was becoming—

He didn't yet know. He was becoming something other than what he was raised to be; that was the only certainty. Somehow it was one more unexpected commonality he shared with Felix after all.

The pause stretched too long. Felix's sharp gaze turned from the calligraphy to much less inscrutable prey, pinning Woden with a long stare.

"You were what? Falling asleep on me?"

Felix jostled him lightly with his knee. Not so very deep beneath his arch amusement, Woden could see the gentling haze of concern. That, he had to admit, was likely warranted as well. The fatigue tugged at his body, not unpleasantly, but impossible to ignore. Despite what Baldr and Felix believed, he did try to mind the limits of this new-old body, the familiar made strange by the intervening years. Sometimes he misjudged. And sometimes, like tonight, couldn't help but become lost in the moment — lost in the temptation of a future now so close that he could feel its warmth against his fingertips, luring him to grasp, to drag out each day with all that he could to make each moment linger.

Just now, that moment was darkening with the storm clouds brewing in Felix's eyes. The swordsman gave him a grunt and another little shove, more purposefully this time.

"Up. If you need me to paint some kind of picture for you to burn, do it tomorrow. Or are you going to make me get Baldr?"

"Never that."

The threat received, Woden raised his cup to begin drinking his tea with more urgent purpose. Felix wouldn't force him to waste that considerate gesture... not if he hurried, at any rate. He swirled the tea absentmindedly, the color remarkably close to the rich burnt-amber of Felix's eyes in this lighting, and let out a soft sigh.

"It's for Mercuria," he explained abruptly. "One of our New Year's traditions. We gift envelopes of money to the children. It would be customary for the three of us to give her one together, but... we should each include something more personal."

He paused to drink again; he absolutely wouldn't put it past Felix to confiscate it altogether if he thought Woden were using it as an excuse to stay and work longer, like a child shirking his bedtime. Unfortunately, that meant that his mouth was full of tea when Felix angled his body to meet Woden's eyes and ask with pointed interest, "'Customary'? What custom?"

Damn the man. It was easy to forget that Felix hadn't left politics behind him because he lacked aptitude for it — nor even because he had the kind of mind that said that most debates could be settled more efficiently by applying cool logic in the form of the flat of his blade upside dissenting heads. No, Felix simply didn't care for it. But he did care for the two men he had left his world behind to pursue; and either as a warrior or as the survivor of Faerghan court scuffles, an opponent so clearly guarding a vulnerability was unlikely to escape his hawk-eyed notice. Woden cleared his throat somewhat painfully from the abruptly swallowed tea and settled back in his chair, drawing his composure about him like a cloak.

"For married partners."

A silence fell, weighted but not awkward. There was no surprise; not when all three of them still wore their rings in wordless acknowledgment. Not when Felix had crossed worlds to be at their side again. The arch of Felix's eyebrows was amused in his incredulity as he repeated his earlier words with new emphasis, "Nuadha. There's a week till the new year."

There was. And one couldn't plan a state wedding in a week, rationally speaking. But now that the words were out, Woden felt seized by a certain manic momentum not unlike a charge into battle, and could only continue in a headlong, decisive rush. The dreams overflowed in his too-tight grip, like the tea sloshing over the edge of the cup onto his fingers in uncharacteristic carelessness when he shifted restlessly.

"Lacking a new priestess of Dana, I would have the authority as the descendant of Nuadha's bloodline and the priesthood." Technically. Very technically. "Yolande would do as well, as the representative of the goddess. If she could make her way here. Although—" he cleared his throat, reined in his emotions willfully with a deep breath, and met Felix's eyes again. The warmth there drew a helpless smile from him in return, small but unmistakable. "...The technicalities are irrelevant."

And they were. The importance was the intent, the symbolism. The three of them acting as one in this, in acknowledging the fledgling familial bond between Mercuria and her newest brother-not-quite-yet-in-law. In making Felix's position here permanent and inviolable, tied to but not dependent upon Woden. Perhaps all of that showed too baldly on his face, because Felix gave a little huff into his teacup and tossed back the last of his tea.

"I'll do it. It doesn't have to be art, does it?"

"No, a note would be typical. I thought art might be easier, if you didn't know what to write to her."

Felix's gaze flicked towards Woden's calligraphy and then back to his face, considering. Woden knew the exact moment he made the connection — recognized in the elegant lines of ink Woden's cowardice, that idioms woven by tradition and culture offered a safe distance from trying to put his own feelings into words. When Felix's eyes narrowed again, Woden was reminded very forcibly that while Felix might be new to being an older sibling himself, he had years of painful experience in reaching for the shadow of a brother who would never return home from a war. Felix's empty teacup thumped down on Woden's desk, the only warning before Felix leaned in so close that all Woden could see for a moment was the flashing challenge in his beautiful eyes; so close that the finger that jabbed his chest to underscore the point startled him into a slight jolt.

"I'm going to write a note. Think you can't manage as much?"

Woden let the moment linger. Not because there was any possibility of his refusal; just to bask in the heat of Felix's closeness, his ferocity glowing like an open flame that Woden couldn't help but reach for. When Woden twined his fingers slowly in the trailing end of Felix's ponytail, Felix's brow wrinkled slightly. Perhaps suspecting a deflection of some kind, though that was much more Baldr's tactical approach than Woden's.

"As I recall, your penmanship was excellent, Duke Fraldarius," he murmured. Felix's scowl deepened; mentally, Woden noted another cultural gap or several to fill. Later. But Felix was correct as well. A bout couldn't be counted as concluded without the opponent conceding. Woden dipped his head in a gesture of assent that brought their faces nearer and added, "...I'll write mine tomorrow as well."

"Good," Felix huffed, before undermining his purported grumpiness with a kiss.

---

They were not, in fact, married by the new year. There were enough other preparations to make, and it was impossible for Yalande to travel such a distance on short notice. Instead, New Year's Eve dawned cloudy and entirely too cold in a way that the original Bifrost's climate had never been. The fireworks that signaled the birth of the new year did so against a backdrop of thick and ominous clouds.

And it was perfect. The giddy whirl of activity, the children underfoot literally everywhere as they decided to decorate every inch of the palace interior. The sight of Felix dressed in Bifrost robes, his eyes limned in the imperial crimson — and the same on Baldr, a credit to Felix's blunt diplomacy once again. Baldr had demurred at Woden's request, trying to deflect without outright citing his commoner status as the reason. The pattern of old arguments that Woden still had no new insight on how to overcome. Ordering Baldr to wear it would only have underscored the point, or so it seemed to him; and then Felix had cut through the tangled knot with a snort and a toss of his head, hands on his hips. "Who gives a damn who doesn't like it? I'm not a duke anymore, either. I'm not going to be the only one wearing this, Baldr."

A lover's demand had more weight than an emperor's, apparently. To his mild surprise, Woden found himself thinking that that was as it should be. Perhaps, in time, he could learn how to speak so that Baldr only heard the former in his voice. He reached over to brush Baldr's hair back from his face where the man lay dozing at the tableside; neither of their demands had had enough weight to keep him from attempting to make what seemed to be several hundred osechi dishes himself, and after a few drinks he was asleep nearly before the last thunder of the fireworks had faded from the sky. Which left Woden and Felix regarding each other across the table, warm with wine and contentment and the company of the ones they loved.

"It'll snow soon," Felix announced as he glanced towards the open screen door. Woden had no idea how he could tell, but no reason either to doubt Faerghan instinct. He hummed, and slipped the heavy cloak from his shoulders to drape as a blanket over Baldr's. The lantern light caught on the Fraldarius crest pin that formed the clasp; in that moment, with the red pigment tracing the elegant curve of his sleeping eyes, Baldr was unmistakably marked as both of theirs. The pride in Woden's chest burned hotter than the liquor, and he found himself smiling as he pushed to his feet and made his way towards the door. Felix let out an indignant noise behind him, footsteps hurried against the tatami mat in his pursuit. "Hey! You'll freeze out there."

"You'd never allow that," Woden countered, and felt the words blossoming into certainty as he said them. Felix caught him a step or two onto the engawa, winding his arms around Woden from behind to pull him back against his lithely muscled chest. Woden had always liked that chest. Even at the tower, unpropitious as the timing was. He melted back against it now with a sound rather like a purr of contentment. The warmth that enveloped him made the biting chill of the air somehow distant, even as he spotted the first snowflake making its spiraling descent.

He was, he realized, just a bit drunk. Pleasantly so; giddily so. Perhaps, in the near future, when the empire had been handed over to Mercuria, he could do this more often. He leaned more of his weight against Felix with a happy sigh; and Felix, sturdy and steadfast as ever, braced his feet to accept it. They must paint an absurd picture, Woden more than half a head taller, lilting precariously like a willow backwards into the reliable — and warm — pillar of Felix's strength. Perhaps that was what provoked Felix's noise of protest as he adjusted their posture, pressing his cheek against the side of Woden's arm. There was a mumbled curse that Woden couldn't quite make out before he felt his hair tumbling loose and heavy down his back. Ah — the kanzashi, of course. Not as large as his formal ones, or his crown, but a hazard nonetheless. Felix dropped them to the wood of the deck, each golden spike letting out a chime as it landed, like the tinkling of bells welcoming the new year. For some reason that made Woden laugh, soft and startled.

"Those things are a weapon," Felix accused. Woden's shoulders shook with his mirth as he cast a sidelong glance down at Felix.

"I'll have some made for you." Felix's answering sigh was satisfied, he decided. And why not? Felix loved weapons. All things sharp and edged, which must be why he favored cats. Why he favored men like Baldr, who was the most elegantly sheathed blade Woden had ever met. Men like Woden himself, a ceremonial dagger nonetheless honed for true and brutal use on the battlefield.

Felix's hands shifted on him, one palm skimming along Woden's side where old scars rested beneath his robes. How strange for Felix, to have had to learn a second body anew. And how strange, for a remade body to carry the scars it had earned before its death. It was the nature of exoflection, of course. Balor's power had given it form, but it was Woden's own cognizance that shaped it. On some level those scars must have become part of his identity. After all — after all, what was the point of a lesson wrought in blood if nothing was learned? Woden nodded thoughtfully to himself, earning a questioning grunt from Felix. He reached down to cover Felix's hand with his, fingertips idly tracing the shape of the ring. Through the drifting flow of his thoughts, swirling in lazy eddies like the falling snow, he grasped for the only explanation that mattered.

"I love you."

One lesson: that hesitation could cost an opportunity for a lifetime. Words left unsaid might die unspoken with all the dreams they held. Another: that words could be sprung like an ambush, vulnerability turned to a tactical advantage that left Felix sputtering briefly behind him. And a third...

...that some things were much easier to say with the courage of alcohol burning in his veins.

"Sap," Felix grumbled, rubbing his cheek against Woden's shoulder like Yamato claiming his territory. Woden bore the complaint with imperial grace, amusement lighting his face when he turned in Felix's arms. Another lesson, perhaps? That things worth saying were worthwhile, no matter how often they had been said before. Or that with enough practice, even he could learn to speak them aloud. Felix's gaze locked with his, his own smile no less soft than Woden's. "But I guess I love you enough to allow it."

The kiss was sweet, warmer than the wine had been, just as lingering. Woden found his fingers once more threaded through the silk of Felix's hair, Felix's hands cupping the back of his head to tug it commandingly down to the height that Felix preferred. With his eyes closed, his world narrowed to every place their bodies touched, the heat driving away the sting of snow in the air. Until quiet footfalls and a low chuckle jolted him back to reality — back to the fond glow in Baldr's eyes as he watched the two of them from the doorway.

"Oh? Are we starting our own tradition of 'firsts' for the new year?"

The mischief in Baldr's voice as he took in Woden's tumbled hair, the disheveled front of Felix's robes where Woden had pulled him closer, clearly signaled he meant far more than just the kiss. Woden groped for the scandalized indignation he should have felt and found it, like the rest of his judgment, subsumed in a haze of wine. "Not in the garden, Baldr," he finally said in the sternest tone he could muster. Baldr laughed again.

"What a shame. The view is... exquisite." He glided over to envelop both of them in a hug, leaning down to claim his first kiss from Felix. And as Woden watched in a daze, he found that he could only agree.

What was he becoming now? He still felt unqualified to answer. What did winter become, when some stubborn soul kicked his booted foot through the lakefront ice to find the waters, frigid as they were, still teeming with improbable life? When loyalty as radiant and blazing as the sun melted through the layers of snow one painstaking inch at a time, to find the beginnings of new growth unfurling underneath?

Winter still, while the chill lasted. Its nature was certain until its season had run its course.

But eventually, inevitably — spring.