Chapter Text
“We can't just keep calling them 'the lions’,” Abram says, patting one of the lions on the head. It's been long enough now that he's able to tell them apart, this one's ears are tipped in brown, and there's a few brown stripes lining its golden cheeks. The other one is smaller, its golden fur lighter on the bottom of its stomach and around its eyes.
The air around them smells of fresh blooms, and new growth. Spring is slowly morphing into summer, and the magic the land holds is changing with it. The magic of the temple is changing too, Abram isn’t sure how, but he can feel it. It’s less like a difference in the air, and more like a shift in the way the world looks and in how the temple exists within it.
“They're lions,” Andrew responds. “What else are we supposed to call them?”
“Their names?”
“They don’t have names,” Andrew says it like it’s something obvious, and not new information.
“Is that true?” Abram asks the lion next to him.
The lion rumbles and rubs its cheek against his arm.
“Their god didn’t see the point in naming them,” Andrew translates voice bored.
“The sun god was too lazy to name them?” Abram asks. Andrew nods absently, eyes trained on the book in his lap. “Huh, he sounds a bit like you.”
Andrew looks up at him with a glare. “We’re nothing alike.”
“You sound sure of that, Andrew,” Abram teases.
“I am.”
That’s surprising. “Have you met him before?”
Andrew hesitates for a long moment, his eyes going to look somewhere over Abram’s shoulder. “...yes.”
Abram lets that statement sink in. Andrew’s interacted with a god before, the god of the sun in particular, and has interacted with the god often enough to speak so familiarly about him. Abram doesn’t know what to make of it. “Did you know the god of this temple as well?”
Andrew’s silence is somehow even longer than his last, and Abram tries to calm his racing thoughts, his imagination running wild while Andrew seems to mull over his words. “Yes….”
“How?”
Andrew opens his mouth, then closes it a second later. Abram stares at the boy and waits, the two lions look between them curiously. Andrew doesn’t know how to answer, that much becomes obvious when the silence hits the three-minute mark. Neither boy has looked away from the other, and Abram finds a well of tremulous emotions in Andrew’s eyes. As if he wants to explain, but it’s all too much. Abram understands, somewhat. At least he understands wanting to tell someone the truth, but not having words. Their positions were switched not too long ago. This new information, however, didn’t fit with what Abram had thought he knew of Andrew. ‘Just a refugee’, Andrew had really let him believe that.
“Andrew,” Abram says quietly. “Who are you?”
“Who are you?” Andrew snaps back, hackles raised.
Abram stares in confoundment at the boy in front of him. “I’m just Abram.”
“And I’m just Andrew,” Andrew says, defensively folding his arms over his chest.
“Were you always, though?” Abram asks.
Andrew groans and turns away from him, running a thin hand through his blond hair. “We are never who we once were, neither of us.”
“That’s not an explanation,” Abram deadpans.
Andrew looks back over his shoulder at Abram. “It’s all I have.”
If only that made sense.
Abram nods, not meeting Andrew’s eyes. He shouldn’t have asked. Andrew runs a hand over the worn stone of some long-forgotten wall and leans against it, facing Abram once again. The smaller lion comes up to his side and flops down at his feet. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You didn’t?” Abram wants to believe him, he really does.
“My name is Andrew, I’ve always been Andrew.” He says carefully. Abram meets his steady gaze. “And I did come here for refuge.”
“And you were never a disciple?” Abram asks. “How did you ever speak to any of the gods then?”
“I wasn’t, technically. It was different back then, gods weren’t so… untouchable. They were closer to the people. We interacted constantly.”
“I can’t imagine.”
Andrew’s hand stills. “I think you can.”
Abram rolls his eyes and lets the subject drop. “They still need names, you know.”
Andrew quirks an eyebrow in confusion.
“The lions.”
Looking down, Andrew nudges the sleeping cat with his foot. “Do they?”
“Yes,” Abram answers solemnly.
Andrew sighs in resignation. “Then we need to name them something stupid.”
“Why?” Abram fights down a smile, Andrew says it so seriously.
“Because the sun god would hate it.”
Abram nods slowly in understanding. “This is the moon god’s temple and they live here now, they’re ours.”
“Exactly.”
“We should name them after the moon then,” Abram says, and Andrew nods. He points to the smaller lion at Andrew’s feet, “Wane,” then turns to the lion at his side, “and Wax.”
Andrew takes a moment to look between the two contemplatively. “He would absolutely hate those names.”
“So, they’re good?”
“Yes.”
“What do the lions think?”
Wax looks up at him and blinks slowly, while Wane just yawns.
“They don’t seem to care much,” Andrew tells him.
Abram pets the lion next to him, getting a content rumble in return. “Then those are their names.”
“Yes,” Andrew agrees. “They are.”
___________________
A question occurs to Abram as he lays in a thick patch of summer grass, nursing the bruises his father gave him earlier that day during training, with his head pillowed in Andrew’s lap. His training had intensified after his thirteenth birthday, and Abram is weary of what's yet to come. He’s spinning a web of fire in his hands, weaving it into intricate patterns then letting it dissolve back into nothing a moment later. Andrew looks like his head is being haloed by the vast expanses of the milky way, his pale gold hair seeming to entrap the stars within it. “What happened to the guardians of this temple?”
Andrew’s eyes are full moon bright when he looks down at Abram, reflective of their neighbor shining over them from the sky. He raises his eyebrows as their lions frolic in the field behind them. “Maybe they’re still here.”
Abram mimics his expression. “Seriously, Andrew?”
Rolling his eyes Andrew raises his hand and cups the side of Abram’s face, saying slowly, “the temple was destroyed Abram, guardians don’t exist when there’s nothing to guard.”
“But you’re here,” Abram points out, “and you’re not nothing.”
“I’m dead.”
Andrew keeps saying that, but Abram isn’t really sure if he knows what the word means anymore. Death seems more complicated than he originally thought. “That doesn’t mean you’re nothing.”
“The guardians won’t manifest for dead things. This temple isn’t alive, it’s people are gone, there’s nothing left to guard.” Andrew trails his fingers down Abram’s jaw and to his neck tapping along with the heartbeat he finds there.
“I don’t believe that, there’s still you.”
Andrew presses down harder on Abram’s neck. “You’re the one who needs protection here, not me.”
Abram reaches up and links his finger under Andrew’s. “You’re never not going to be frustrating, are you Andrew?”
“You’re not one to speak.”
“So, there aren’t any guardians.”
“Right.”
“But what were they?” Abram asks.
“Guess.”
Abram narrows his eyes at the boy. “Not lions.”
He swears Andrew’s lips fall into a quick smirk. “Not lions.”
Abram pulls his amulet from the folds of his shirt and brings it up to eye level, squinting at the intricate designs it holds to see if they tell him anything. He looks past it to Andrew’s face, it covers the lower portion, making the boy look as if he is frowning. Abram flips the amulet around, making it look like Andrew’s smiling.
Andrew pushes the amulet back against Abram’s chest. “You really don’t know anything about the gods.”
It’s not a question so Abram doesn’t answer, which is probably answer enough.
“Wolves,” Andrew deadpans, and shakes his head. “They were wolves.”
“You don’t seem like a dog person, Andrew.”
“I’m not a people person either, yet you’re here.”
“I’m here.”
They’re silent as they watch each other. The moon lingers low in the treetops, and Abram knows it’s late. He needs to leave, but he really really doesn’t want to.
“The fall equinox,” Andrew whispers.
“What?” Abram blinks.
“The fall equinox, that’s when we’ll start the next step to crack the seal.” Andrew pinwheels their conversation in another direction without a second thought.
All Abram can do is stare at him blankly as his mind scrambles to keep up. “It’s time?”
Andrew nods. “It’s time.”
_________
Fall seems to take ages to grace the land. Abram’s days are filled with blood, his father's heavy-handed punishments, and a sinking feeling in his gut whenever he thinks about his future. His father keeps talking about him needing more training, needing a different teacher. Abram doesn’t know what he means by that. His father’s lessons only increase in intensity, and Abram is able to take apart a person as easily as he’s able to climb stairs these days. Wielding a knife is like reading a book. He hates it, but he waits till it’s over each day, then goes to Andrew’s temple each night to forget.
The equinox doesn’t come soon enough.
Andrew is waiting for him under their tree when he arrives on the night of the fall equinox, Wane and Wax flanking him with the towering white temple behind him. Abram swears he sees shadows dancing under the moonlight within its wall and hears the faint sounds of laughter permeating the air. It’s Abram’s fifth equinox here, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to this
Abram grins and takes the final step across the seal.
“Took you long enough,” Andrew drawls, lazily running a hand over Wane’s head.
“Not like you had anything better to do,” Abram says, stopping in front of the boy. At this angle he’s slightly taller than Abram, but Abram would never tell Andrew that. “Hello, Andrew.”
“Hello, Abram.” Andrew pushes himself off the tree and turns towards the temple. “Let’s go.”
Andrew leads him through the halls of the temple without a second glance. Wane and Wax stay plastered to his side, the two lions seeming as undisturbed by the new face the temple has taken as Andrew is. Abram supposes it’s because the temple resembles the one they’re from now, more than it does when it looks like a pile of ruins.
There is something more substantial about the temple now, though, than previous equinoxes. It might have something to do with the runes he and Andrew made. They’ve been gathering magic for over a year now.
Andrew stops in front of one of those runes, the one farthest from their tree, and the last one they had drawn. It’s beside a bubbling stream, on the side of what once had been a great statue depicting the moon god. It usually looked more like a crumpled pile of stones, but tonight it towered over the trees; a cloaked figure with head held high, reaching desperately for the stars above it.
Turning to him Andrew holds out a piece of chalk, and Abram takes it begrudgingly. “What is this for?”
Andrew looks back to the rune. “The next step is making a sigil that encompasses the temple, connecting all the runes.”
“Okay, what does the sigil look like?”
“Whatever it wants to, you’ll know it when you draw it,” Andrew waves a hand around, face blank.
“That makes no sense,” Abram points out.
“You make no sense.”
“Andrew.”
He taps at the rune not taking his eyes off of Abram, it bursts into a bright silver mixing with the light coming from the temple to illuminate the forest around them. Wane and Wax take a step back, letting out a small hiss as they do so. “This magic is ours now, listen to it and it will guide you.”
Abram looks uncertainly down to the chalk in his hand. “Alright.”
“You start at the end, and I’ll start at the beginning. We’ll meet in the middle.” Andrew says.
“Just like that?” Abram asks.”
“Just like that.” Andrew nods. “We have until the first snow falls.”
And in a flash of moonlight Andrew’s gone, leaving Abram alone with the two lions. “Well, he’s excited.”
Wax comes over and licks his hand with a rough tongue. “Yes, I know, better get started.”
Abram closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and listens to the magic.
Its song sings loudly in his mind.