stories are good!
Hi!
It's not a yaoi story, per say.
Craylish is a yaoi boy, but he was in love with Jewls' father. This is just a very small short story, just Craylish comforting Jewls over a hurt butterfly.
[link] < link
And here's a chunk of it
Soooo if you like Jewls stories, please take a look. Besides, one of these days I'm going to write a Craylish/Johara story.
Lords of Butterflies
"Where is Jewlie?" Craylish asked. It was a late spring afternoon, warm, the air layered with floral and light sweet incense. Craylish the Wicked Smile was a tall man with a fine boned face and eyes so green they could have been emeralds. Sun warmed cream colored linen lay across strong shoulders, lay only half laced at his throat, and an aura of predator clung to him, of someone who was not quite civilized, not quite safe.
His history in the barding community spoke volumes for the shear silence of what was missing. He did not come into the record until the Master of Earth barded him at the request of Johara the Forever. His age had been listed as unknown, but it had not taken the guild all that long to chase down his parents, to start rumors and whispers in the back of bardhouses. Craylish had never competed in any tournaments, but the notoriety of his master's name had given him openings where a bard of lesser linage would have actually had to sing or show some talent.
It could even be said that there was nothing to Craylish the Wicked Smile that Johara the Forever had not built before Craylish ever arrived. He freely ran debts against his master's account and the fact that he was not dead of alcohol and gambling had cost more than one bard substantial wagers. The last act of abandonment by Johara had given Craylish something more than he'd ever planned on having.
The woman he spoke to now was in her early fifties, three temple braids with only decorative glass baubles hanging from them. She was a woman of square face and sharp eyes, sitting at a desk with dozens of quills. Marith the Cloud had won twenty-three tournaments in her day, had trained five apprentices, and outlived two soulkeepers. Many thought, if the timing were right, she might become Master of Water. In her youth, it was even said that she too had been blessed by the company of Johara the Forever.
"He is with the butterflies," she said, dismissive, irritated at the question somehow. "Look at this." she held out to him a parchment with rows of symbols drawn on it, the full length, then down in another column until it came to a pattern that he did not recognize anymore than the others.
"And this is?" While it was easy enough to see that his apprentice had drawn the symbols, he did not understand the meaning.
One gray eyebrow arched. "It is a puzzle, of sorts. Cr'sier, one of my apprentices, solved it when in her ninth year. I have never known any apprentice to solve it younger than that, and never on the first try. But you see, I told him he could go into the butterfly house, if he solved it."
"Yeah," Cray said, scratching the side of his head, until Marith glared at him as if he had maybe brought lice into her home. "Yeah, uh, Jewlie likes bugs. It's a good thing he got one that tasted bad."
Marith actually paled, then stabbed forward as if she'd lost the last of her reserve, "You can't train him. You know so little of what it really means to be a bard. I will pay you…."
So quickly, he'd crossed the hard wood floor to tower over her. All that was male glittered around him, aggression, violence, possession, strength, conviction, and a powerful projection that what he was to say was the deepest of truths. "If you even try, I'll kill you. You know who my master was, and who his father was. It's not a hard conclusion to draw. For all I know you know who is mother is too, and so you know that if I'd been willing to give him up, I'd have done it for more gold than you've ever owned."
She hissed, the whites of her eyes big, "You dare!"
"Yeah, I do. You're right, I can't teach him shit, but he's better than you deserve. He'll learn all you've really got to teach him before he's finished cutting his teeth, and then we'll be off to find another bard with something to teach him. He'll learn from ever bard I can find and he wouldn't even put it together that he's getting the best education any bard ever got. Then when your apprentices' apprentices are competing against him, they're going to go home crying because of the red headed bastard that broke their chops. So get over yourself."
"If you take him bard to bard, someone will kill him to avoid just exactly that. Don't be a fool, Wicked Smile."
"There are many things I am, and a fool is probably one of them, but you'd steal from him something you can't give back. I might be nothing but a fancy peasant, but I'll be damned if the guild will touch his soul sooner than it needs to."
"You speak as if the guild is your enemy, not your greatest protector," she accused.
"Well, my Master was The Forever, so I did get a little different take on what the guild has become."
She sniffed and snatched the puzzle parchment back out of his hand. "The Forever, he is deranged. Has been. So let us be clear, Wicked Smile, The Forever, whatever he is, god, demon, unfortunate man, he did not love you anymore than he loved me."
"Yeah, well, sometimes, it's not the love you get it's the love you give that makes you changed."
"Master!" A small voice called, little feet padding along polished oak floor, "Master, it's blue!"
All the danger melted out of Craylish's face, to be replaced by a deep kindness. The boy, small yet, a smile of baby teeth and huge violet eyes, red hair braided and wrapped into a top knot on his head, held out both hands, one cupped over the other. Blue stuck out from between his hands and he jumped up and down as soon as he reached Craylish, then ran all the way around his master twice before the man caught him by the back of his shirt and pulled him up against a bent knee. "What'cha got there, Jewlie?"
"Blue," the little boy said, drawing the word out, wonder all over his face.
"I told you specifically not…" Marith's words cut short as Craylish gave her a warning smile.
[link] < rest of the story for fifty cents
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