Cullen had been pampering him with attention- not in an outright, forward way, but quietly; placidly. He allowed Varanduil to trail at his side like an attentive, hungry shadow, eager for the slightest glance or word the golden leader laid out for him like a banquet- and he had been feasting of late. 'You are special.' Cullen had said it with all the calm pragmatism of a simple fact. Varanduil envied his easy untruths; was proud that he was worthy of them.

Now, strolling through a lagoon bursting to life after a bitter winter, he felt so at ease in the safe harbour of Cullen's gilded patience that his attention could drift to the myriad of smells and occasional slippery shadow drifting at the fringes of his awareness, and he was idly considering one such strange scent when he felt the shiver-inducing touch of cold, clear eyes on him; a sensation growing so familiar that he basked in it for a moment before turning the glittering pitch of his own stare to his master. Though he'd grown more accustomed to Cullen's attention, it had never ceased to light his nerve endings on fire with an eager, almost painful awareness, and he luxuriated in this now as this cold marble predator spoke pointedly to him; gazed pointedly at him; pressed in close to the heat of him and him alone in this moment, as if about to ask him to prove his loyalty with a difficult task. It was a short-lived pleasure.

"It is because of this threat that I want you to leave."

The softened eagerness of Varanduil's narrow face froze; turned stiff. -It was a joke, it had to be a- but while Cullen taunted and teased and dribbled casual cruelties from his soft pink mouth, he didn't joke, and right now a dark shadow of true anger was shifting across his face like a brewing storm. Under other circumstances, Varanduil would've been delighted at the chance to see it- to see any of Cullen's countless facets laid glittering and bare for his admiration- but now, that serious expression turned him cold with fear. -Would Cullen use those easy lies to get rid of something he'd found to be worthless? How many times now had Varanduil let easy prey slip away..? Varanduil's stomach twisted so tight it cramped, and he felt himself shrink. 'No, I can do better-! I can be better!' he wanted to cry, but that same shrinking cold had closed his throat, and he was silent and utterly still; small and helpless in the face of total uncertainty.

"When the threat has ended I need you to come back and become my own personal trinket. You are mine and mine alone," Cullen's ruthless voice slid across his skin with the luxuriance of a fine fur cloak, heavy and hot.

It was everything Varanduil had boldly, stupidly split open of himself when they first met, all that time ago, spilled at Cullen's gleaming hooves like a pile of steaming gore, ugly and too intimate. And he wanted it, immediately and with a desperation bordering on terror, as Cullen now dangled it before him, as if having forged his disgusting weaknesses into a glittering, glorious collar. It was so delicious and tender, resting on the plush swell of Cullen's stern, soft mouth, that Varanduil was afraid of it. Stiff and graceless as a puppet, he fumbled a step closer, reaching as if he could bite it from Cullen's poisonous lips and swallow it so he couldn't take it back.

He was so dazed and hypnotized by that cruelly-knowing gift, it took him a moment to realize that venomous mouth was still moving; still speaking (still only to him), but when it sank in, he faltered. His leader's clear eyes were intent upon his face, calculating (calculating him? his reaction? his worth?), and Varanduil felt very young and very far behind when his glorious golden leader turned and forged steadily on, at a loss for what his face had even been doing for Cullen to see.

A child..? Cullen was mad. Or lying. As ever, his molten back told Varanduil nothing he wanted to know. Was he truly just ridding himself of a burden? Certainly, if Varanduil were trying to rid himself of a parasite, making them believe they were leaving him willingly and drizzling them with promises of all they desired across the horizon was the cleverest way. ...But Cullen's blunt tone was its own sort of earnestness, his presumptuous, bold statements as casually confident as breathing. If he was mad, he had been mad all along, and Varanduil wanted his madness the same as he hungered for the rest of him.

If he was lying...

-If he was lying, the trap he'd laid was so sweet that Varanduil could only cede him the victory and step knowingly into it, as he now trailed hollowly at his heels, afraid of the trap; afraid if it wasn't a trap at all; enraptured, as ever, by Cullen's callous beauty and the clear, bold, fearless lines of his profile as he moved. He opened his mouth to speak- or, perhaps, just to make a small, cracking, animal sound of defeat, because he felt small, and cracked, and empty of the alchemy that could distill his strange emotions into words- but Cullen was swifter, and, mercifully, no longer looking at him.

The mare- the one, he realized with a dull, distant recognition, he'd been curiously scenting on their way (a lifetime ago now)- was small; soft; a warm auburn glow in the young greenery bursting eagerly around her. Large eyes framed by thick, glossy black hair that floated lightly as she moved, softening an already gentle face. It was a face that suited Cullen's sweet, light voice so well that it was a moment before Varanduil was startled by it, but when he glanced hurredly at his leader's ivory features, those shrewd eyes were on him with a delicately-crafted sorrowful pout, and though this couldn't be anything but an act, even that fake, fleeting vulnerability aimed at him made his skin heat, and he shifted to press his forehead against Cullen's hipbone on the pretense of rubbing an itch (though he pressed hard- harder- until it hurt enough to muddle why his eyes were burning). Strapping in his straining innards with something that was perhaps second cousins with composure, he straightened; turned to her; tilted his bronze head on his sleek neck in a smooth but mechanical greeting.

His voice was a wet husk, but he dragged it low until it mirrored something sultry: "Please, don't worry her with our troubles..." His brow was tight, and it was no difficulty at all to tangle it up into a vulnerable knot. Far more work was keeping his steps steady as he approached her, his lean muscles standing out in his dusky coat with the effort hold in every writhing thing under his surface. Coming to rest a polite distance from her dravite shoulder, like a bishop at the ready to protect his queen on the chessboard, he graciously tipped his narrow head in invitation, his wet black eyes focused on where the tips of her black mane tickled her collar below his low-slung white lashes, unable or unwilling to lift them to see either her or Cullen's face, afraid of what their expressions could do to him.

If Cullen wanted her, Varanduil could do no less than his best to keep her. That was all he had to worry about right now. The rest- the trap; the sweet hoard of golden, glittering lies; the possibility that, once he left here of his own accord, Cullen would never come for him- the rest could wait.

"...The Crossing can be a tiring place to face all alone. Let us offer you a place to rest," he hummed quietly, a violin playing a sorrowful lullaby.