I originally wrote this scene for a Christmas exchange with another writer who was one of the original beta readers for Shards and had particularly liked these two characters. It takes place a significant amount of time before the events in Shards itself, so do be aware that there are some spoilers lurking ahead.
~*~
Gabriel leaned over the railing, looking out at the well-manicured lawn below. The air was chilly – nothing too uncomfortable, unseasonably warm, really – but not enough to drive him back inside.
“Always lost in your thoughts,” said a voice from behind. Gabriel turned to find a man standing behind him, the lights from the party beyond washing out his features.
“Rafe,” Gabriel greeted, turning back to the gardens below him. Music filtered out from windows and doors along the side of the manor. “I thought you were dancing.”
“I was,” his friend answered. Rafe came and stood next to him, looking out at the land but not seeing it. “I realized you were gone and came to see where you went.”
Gabriel glanced at Rafe out of the corner of his eye. It was still strange to see him like this – skin and hair changed to fit in with this society. It’d been a few years and the wrongness had never faded. “You have found me.”
“So I have,” answered Rafe with a brilliant smile.
Gabriel felt the corners of his lips lift in response. Then he sobered. “Do you want to go?” he asked.
Rafe blinked. “We’ve only been here an hour,” he said. “I know this isn’t your sort of thing, but I did let you read all afternoon without interruption.” Rafe paused, scratching behind one ear. “Except that one time. But aside from that I was the very model of discretion. Those books, really. Sometimes I wish they’d never been invented. I think I got more of your attention before them.”
“I like books,” said Gabriel. “There’s something comforting about them. Maybe I’d like to have a book shop one day. But that’s not what I meant.”
Rafe stared at him, obviously confused.
“I meant,” Gabriel elaborated, “leave here, go somewhere else, somewhere where you wouldn’t have to hide all the time. I know it bothers you.”
A smile flashed across Rafe’s face, brilliant and warm. “Where would we go?” he asked, leaning one elbow on the railing.
Gabriel shrugged. “Asia, perhaps,” he said. “I could play the part of the eccentric European, and we’ll make up some fantastical country that you hail from.”
“Excellent,” said Rafe. “I want it to have elephants. And flying horses.”
Gabriel allowed the full smile this time. “Whatever you want.”
“Will you be fine leaving Michael and Eve?” Rafe asked, still leaning his weight against the railing.
“I’m sure they wouldn’t be adverse to some time alone.” Gabriel turned, looking back at the ball he had vacated. “We can meet back up with them in a century or so. What’s important is your happiness.”
“I am happy,” Rafe replied. He took Gabriel’s hand. “Come, dance with me.”
“Rafe,” said Gabriel in a warning tone.
Rafe rolled his eyes in a thoroughly ungentlemanly manner. “Gabriel, you have no imagination. We have these lovely gardens all to ourselves and, if memory serves me, between my air and your water we can create this wonderful act of nature known as fog, which, I hear, sometimes rolls in unexpectedly.”
Gabriel sighed. “I apologize. Things have been…strange.”
“I know,” said Rafe. He gave Gabriel’s hand a squeeze. “Thank you for thinking of me. Now, about that dance?”
“It would be my pleasure.” With one last glance at what they were leaving behind, Gabriel followed Rafe down the stone staircase onto the lawns below. The grass crunched beneath their feet as their fog billowed, their powers twisting together, familiar and complimentary, obscuring them from the manor.
As the fog swirled around them, Rafe pulled Gabriel close, and he allowed himself to relax into the embrace and imagine their future together.
