The world's wheels spin uselessly in place, stuck in muddy time.

Oh well, that's the misery of midwinter: icy, blustering, and disagreeable in turns.

It does have its moments of silent beauty scattered in the deep of night, when snow-spangled forests lie quiet over long hours. Bundled-up families feed logs into fires and uncurl their stiff fingers long enough to clutch frothy chocolate drinks. It might be bone-achingly cold, sure, but that only makes the cover of their quilts that much sweeter.

There's rain, there's slush, there's snow so powdery it's like the clouds have decided that the world is a dish in need of just a little more salt. There are overcast days, clear nights, frost-formed patches of lace spreading across windowpanes.

And, through it all, the chimera continues to lick its wounds, heedless of the season's turning.

-

Lionel's first words upon returning to the citadel from the garden party had been: "That was fun."

Skander isn't shocked by this; he knows his brother's temperament well. Someone as carefree as him probably thrives in a world gone haywire like the chimera's. An endless Midsummer Eve is perfect for him.

What Skander is surprised to hear is that even Viveka's report that the beast must be healing, and healing fast, isn't enough to induce Aedus Kade to return to their city and 'be the hero they need', or however the council phrases it in a letter urging him to come back.

(Predictably, Tai has a lot to say on this, none of it good.)

Just shy of the two-month mark of their return from the Revel Queen's, they're once more called back to the citadel in the most unsubtle manner possible: a banner bearing the words It's wedding time, folks! hanging between its highest spires.

"Are you trying to get us into trouble?" Kalila asks the sage once they've dutifully trudged their way through February's slush and chill. "Can't you think of a less conspicuous way to bring us over here? There are only so many times we can tell everyone we're 'investigating the citadel's strangeness'. They're growing suspicious over why we keep getting pulled back."

"I told you that the wedding would be in midwinter; it's not my fault you don't keep better tabs on your social calendar," the sage says. It marches here and there in the receiving hall, scratching notes onto a wooden tablet. With every few strides it pauses to make an adjustment: straightening out a rug, retying a length of cord that holds back cloth drapery, or using a fireplace poker to prod beyond the hearth.

When it does glance up from its work, its expression turns horrified. "You people look terrible," it says.

The sage isn't entirely wrong here. The citadel's former residents have certainly been better, but a long trek through bitter winds and slippery lanes tends to detract from one's finest form. There's not a single one of them who isn't flushed and shivering, clad in damp clothes and crowned with windswept hair.

Their prickly host starts ushering them toward the stairs to the upper floor. "Go to your rooms and get presentable, my wayward roosters. Only amateurs would show up to a wicker faerie wedding looking as bad as you."

As if summoned by the word 'amateur', Jasper appears unannounced at the head of the stairs in less time than it takes to blink. He's in his socks and sleep-clothes, comb mid-run through his rumpled hair in evident preparation for bed.

He looks startled to see them at first, but quickly recovers. Long practice with world-hopping will do that to a person.

"Hello, everyone," he says.

A chorus of answering hellos and cheery welcomes greet him. No one's too shocked by his quick emergence. Long practice in being friends with a world-hopper will do that.

Out of all of them, the sage is especially unimpressed. "Speaking of looking terrible," it says.

Jasper's offended expression gets swept into the crowd as the sage keeps pushing them upward. Once they've staggered to the top step, it dismisses them with a noncommittal wave.

"Meet me here at eleven o'clock, little snails," it says. "Any later and you'll miss the fun."

As if in omen of the mayhem to come, the sage leaves them by clambering onto the bannister and sliding its steepness all the way back to the lower floor, cackling as it goes.

-

"But why Tai?"

Lionel sits cross-legged on a chair, chin propped upon his fist as he watches his brother get ready.

"Why not him?" Skander replies, trying not to let his tone take on the sharp edge of impatience. He's grown tired of this track of conversation; Lionel has brought it up endlessly since that summer day he'd first found out. "It isn't like you to hold a grudge like this. He hasn't done anything to you."

While speaking, he fiddles with something over his left ear. The mirror he stands in front of is exactly how he remembers it from years of staying at the citadel: long, oval-shaped, and lined by a round russet frame. How surprising, to have missed something as ordinary as this. Skander's glad that the sage has taken the time to recreate their past home, every room made to look exactly as he recalls.

"That's my problem with him: he doesn't do anything for anyone. He isn't nice at all," Lionel says. "I know you're your own man and can do what you like, I promise I understand. But don't you want to be with someone kinder than Tai?"

Skander sighs, low and quiet. "Did I ever ask you this many questions about Zahara?" he says.

Lionel looks so comically offended by this that Skander has to wrestle with the urge to laugh. "Why would you need to? Everyone knows she has endless good qualities."

"So does Tai."

A heavy moment of silence.

"You can't be serious," says Lionel. "Like what?"

Skander looks thoughtful. His eyes become lost in mirror-glass as he picks through his answer. "Tai's fearless," he says. "Dedicated. He's never anyone but himself." His voice tries to falter for the last one, but he won't let it be anything but steady while speaking to his younger brother: "He took me to see the sea."

Skander doesn't know how to mask himself as he says this, a first when speaking to someone he has always tried to be an anchor for. It's such a dear memory, tucked into a high place of honor in his heart. And Lionel knows very well how much his brother has always wanted to see the sun crown the water.

Lionel gives him a careful look through their shared reflection in the mirror. In that moment, Skander is sure that he understands him.

"All right," he concedes, finally. "I guess I can try to understand."

He still doesn't look happy about it, but it's a start.

-

Tai doesn't care much for the citadel, the wedding, or the sage.

The latter must have anticipated that they would need fine apparel, so a pitch-dark coat accented in silver is already laid out for him when he enters his old room. Tai is no stranger to regalia or clothes of quality, and deems it suitable.

His thoughts turn toward his cat, who's likely curled up by one of the Kato family's many fireplaces. If Puzzle were here, he'd be scratching his claws against the clothes' embroidery just to be a nuisance, bothersome pet that he is.

Tai misses him.

After bathing in warmed water and pulling the coat on, he goes to the space's lone window. His room is situated at the top of one of the western wing's towers, and the view it grants looks out over the open field between the citadel and the woods. The black figures of trees stand bare-branched, resembling hands poised for a desperate grab at the starry mantle of sky above.

Nothing is disturbed down below; an unswayed picture frozen in place. There must not be a strong wind, then. Upon a rare impulse, Tai cracks the window open. A gentle breeze tries to move the edges of his coat.

He almost feels easy. At peace.

The feeling calls someone to mind.

Where is Iskander? he wonders.

A knock upon the door disturbs him. While crossing the room to open it, he already knows it won't be Skander, who now knocks perfunctorily with the knowledge of already being welcome. Whatever fist is currently banging on the entrance is putting much more effort into being heard.

Out of all the options for who it could be on the other side, he isn't expecting Lionel.

Skander's little brother has his arms crossed and his chin tilted up. Is he trying to look intimidating?  Tai asks himself. If so, he's doing a poor job of it.

"Where is your brother?" Tai asks him.

Lionel's brow furrows further. "He has a name."

"Fine. Where is Iskander?"

"And that's another thing," Lionel exclaims, as if this isn't the first thing he's saying. "You always call him that. If you're so dedicated to courting him, why use his full name? It's so formal."

"I like the whole of it," is the only thing Tai says. He wonders vaguely why he's still entertaining this conversation.

When he tries to leave the room and enter the hall, Lionel puts an arm out to stop him. The look Tai gives him for this is like the edge of a knife.

Lionel is undeterred. "I told Skander I'd try to understand this for his sake. He told me why he likes you so much," he says.

That's enough to sooth Tai's glower. What did he say? is the question he barely refrains from asking.

Lionel isn't accustomed to trying to dissect the expressions or tones of others. He wants to let the world slide right off his shoulders, insubstantial as a wisp of cloud. But he's trying to be perceptive, for Skander's sake.

"When did all this happen? I never noticed it before," he says.

"Unsurprising."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that of course you didn't know. You play the overprotective brother now, but when have you put him first? He followed you to Beledon to look out for you, took an apprenticeship that consumed all his time to support you both while you did what, exactly? The odd tailoring job, leaving you free to flit around the city with the rest of your spare hours. And now that he's finally spending his time on something for the sole sake of wanting it, you ruin it with your disapproval," Tai tells him, uncaring about the way Lionel's face falls to hear it.

Then he rallies and says, "I can't believe you're lecturing me about not working enough. What do you even do? Sit around and be rich, it looks like." Managing their family's vast parcels of land is the answer here, but Tai doesn't get the chance to say it before Lionel continues: "And I could do more to help my brother when he's upset or tired if he would just tell me, but he never does."

"And he never will," Tai replies.

Lionel looks crushed at this, but Tai isn't bothered. It's true. Skander will always see him as the young brother he should only be showing his best side to. His tendency to mold himself into what he thinks the situation requires of him has his own thoughts and sorrows pushed aside to accomplish it. With Lionel, the person he's forever seeking to shelter, this inclination is at its worst.

"He'll never be willing to burden you, so let me help him instead," says Tai.

Lionel just looks at him, blank-faced. Then he says, "You'd do that?"

Tai scoffs. "I have no idea why you're surprised."

He glances at the clock: already half-past ten. This is much longer than he's ever wanted to talk to Lionel, but the latter persists.

"So you really care about him, then?" he asks.

"I'm not deigning that with a response."

"I just want to hear you say it," Lionel says. "Then I'll leave, and we'll both be happy."

Tai sighs, long-suffering. He looks up to where the glow of hallway lanterns disappears among the ceiling's dark. Something about the sight softens him. Reluctantly, Tai allows himself a small slide into introspection.

"For a while now, I've been watching him carefully. Ever since we met," he says, voice low.

"And?"

"And I love him," Tai says. Every word is carefully formed. He feels an odd sense of wonder at hearing them leave his lips. "What I saw, who he is. I love him."

He'd laugh at Lionel's look of shock if he wasn't so similarly surprised at himself.

-

Skander waits for him in the far western hall. He leans on the sill of one of the tall, arched windows, looking out into the half-moon light. His coat is a regal shade of deep purple, and a gleam of silver along his ear heralds the return of that vine-shaped cuff that had given Tai so much trouble a year ago. Tai loves him.

For a second, he lets himself look his fill in the security of being unobserved.

The shade of purple Skander wears goes well with the warm brown of his skin. It's far finer cloth than the clockmaker's plain garb Tai had first seen him in, but even then, he had been aware of never having been so close to someone that beautiful before. His black hair has been carefully swept back from his face, which Tai is a little disappointed by. He likes having an excuse to move the wayward strands away himself.

When Skander becomes aware of Tai, his pensive expression clears, but not fast enough to escape notice.

What is he nervous about?

It could be worry over his brother, or anxiety over whatever strangeness may await them at the wedding, or any of the thousands of cares that the world sees fit to heap on its inhabitants. Whatever it may be, Skander pastes on a thoughtless smile to try covering it up.

Anyone else might have bought its authenticity, but not Tai. He knows him well.

"Taihei," Skander says, by way of greeting. As his head turns to fully regard him, a lock of hair comes loose to fall over his forehead.

Seeing it, Tai is hit by a sudden rush of gratitude. Some lucky hand truly must have laid out his life, to give the two of them the joy of being more than they were before.

He comes closer to tuck that single lock back in among the rest. Skander watches him as he approaches, eyes fond and darkened even further by the dim light.

Once he's satified with his handiwork, Tai leans forward and kisses him.

Skander immediately curls a hand around his collar to pull him closer. A long time passes until they separate, but when they do, Tai is smiling.

"I love you," he says, quiet and distinct.

Without waiting for a response, he starts making his way toward the stairs to the lower floor. It'll be eleven o'clock soon. They may as well get this wedding over with.

Skander, following a brief pause in the stillness of happy surprise, calls out, "I love you too" after him.

Tai turns to grin at him over his shoulder. Skander flushes with slight embarrassment at his own outburst and the volume with which it seems to echo in the hall. But he's happy still.

When he catches up, he slips his hand into Tai's, who looks down at this with some disbelief.

"How do you manage to keep your hands at the temperature of a furnace, even on a February night? It's impossible to understand," he says. Despite these complaints, he runs a gentle thumb over Skander's knuckles.

"As if yours aren't somehow freezing in July," Skander responds. He couldn't stop smiling if he tried.

They reach the top of the stairs, where the rest of the assembled group waits.

"Well, that's all of you," the sage says. Even after all its insisting that they dress in the finery it had laid out for them, the shapeless dark robes it has on are the same as it always wears. "I hope you have your wills drawn up already, folks, because it's time for a wicker faerie wedding."

The first part of this statement incites an explosion of protests, exclamations, and demanded explanations from everyone present.

"Too late now," is all the grinning sage says.

Throughout the citadel, the clocks strike eleven.