Gavriel watches Aedion after the Valg wars
A little fic to help my aching heart heal.
***
As Gavriel left his body, the light fading from his eyes as the Valg gutted him and tore at his immortal flesh, he thought of his son – the one he barely knew.
He thought of the years he’d wish he’d had with him - his Pride.
In his living state, he did not have the big moments. Was not there when his love found out about the child, nor the first time she’d felt him kick, or when he was born.
His first steps.
His first words.
The first time he’d held a sword in his tiny little fist.
The first time he’d went to war.
Moments that Gavriel had desperately wanted to have with him. But one cannot reverse time.
He could tell he was not alone here. He watched as his body was made into shreds, and felt a warm presence at his side. He turned his head, away from the noise and chaos of war, and near cried at the sight.
It was her. His love, the woman he would have destroyed worlds for. The mother of his child. She looked so much like the queen he had been serving for months that he forgot that once when he saw Aelin he thought that perhaps she might have been his daughter. The two looked eerily alike, and he was sure that if he ever saw Evalin Ashryver she would be the third in their trinity.
“Hello, my love,” she said, her voice sad. She reached a hand to his face, and he couldn’t believe it when he felt her skin against his.
“This, what is going on? What is this?” His voice was stricken as he looked at the princess that had him falling to his knees.
“I have waited for you,” she told him. “And I’m – I’m sorry. That you did not get more time with our son. I hope you can understand why I had to do what I did.”
He shook his head. “You were sick, sick enough to leave our son without a parent when if you had just come home you would have been fine. You didn’t even have to see me. I always respected your wishes for me to stay away from you. I wouldn’t have interfered.”
“He had Evalin and Rhoe and so many others that loved him dearly. He was never alone. And it was worth the risk. Just look at what Maeve has done. I couldn’t risk him being trapped in her claws.”
Gavriel heard the unsaid words. “Like me?”
She paused. “Yes. Like you.”
He looked back to his body, covered by many others at this point, the gate blessedly closed. He walked, and jolted at how easy the action was, and wondered exactly what being dead entailed. He knew the Queen of Terrasen had summoned spirits many a time, but the thought never really occurred to him that there was more than life.
He was walking, but then he was just gone. Appearing in the courtyard where his son was fighting, clutching his heart as he watched him struggle to survive.
His love, still at his side, stayed silent, watching with him. As he suspected she had for many years.
So, as a form not corporal, he watched his son from the Afterworld.
He was grief stricken, and Gavriel could never have expected such a response from the boy. Gavriel yearned to comfort him, but it would hopefully be many, many years before they spoke again. So, he did what he could. He stayed with him, at his side, his presence a solid one.
He yelled, cried, gasped as he watched the war unfold and his son’s role in it. He saw his boy cry at his body, and wished to the Gods he knew were no longer there that he could say just a few things.
I love you. I’m proud to be your father. I wanted you.
