Niki (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
niki_chidon) wrote2007-06-22 12:52 am
niki_chidon) wrote2007-06-22 12:52 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Conversations with a Wolf (Gabriel/Friedrich)
Title: Angels in Thy Soul: Part 1: Conversations with a Wolf
Author: Niki
Fandom: The Gabriel Knight games
Pairing: Gabriel Knight/Friedrich von Glower
Rating: PG-13 for now, I believe
Disclaimer: Jane Jensen & Sierra own them all. No monetary gain, no disrespect, you know the drill.
Series: Sequel to The Relative Brightness Inside
Previous part Prologue
Notes: This will be an on-going story under one general title but all the chapters will be independent stories because I don't know how often the inspiration will strike...;)
Summary: Grace and Friedrich bond. Apologies for the ramblings on history but I needed to find a common ground for them!
Conversations with a Wolf
--------------------------------------
Afterwards, I could not tell how the conversation had started but I was sitting by the fireplace alone with Grace and somehow she had made me talk about my past loves. She was still suspicious of my motives, of course, and was now using this opportunity of Gabriel's absence to interrogate me.
"Have *all* your lovers been men?"
"'Lovers' in the sense you mean... yes."
"What's up with that, anyway? Does turning into a werewolf also turn you gay?"
"No, Miss Nakimura, I do not believe so. And trust me... the 'men' part troubled me almost more than the wolf part, in the beginning. But... during my travels, I encountered more diverse opinions than the Western bigotry..."
"But what about your precious nature?"
She was mocking me, yes, but also willing to discuss the matter with me, engage in a debate of equal minds - whether she realised it or not, her attitude towards me had changed over the weeks we had been forced to co-habitate in the Schloss.
"The scientists have come to realise during recent studies that even some animals have sex for pure pleasure. This view was strongly denied earlier and still faces considerable opposition," she raised her eyebrow, waiting for me to get to the point, and I smiled slightly before going on, "And these species also show homosexual behaviour. But who can tell? When an older tomcat mounts a younger male, is it a show of power, the lack of options, or an actual show of pleasure for its own sake? After all, animal sexuality has always been a borderline issue. Often, what in animal kingdom is called 'mating' would be called 'rape' in a human society. But I am not an animal in that sense, Miss Nakimura. I am, also, a man."
I paused, secure in the knowledge I had her attention now.
"And as far as humans go... The Greek believed - which is of course a misleading thing to say as 'the Greek' held a variety of philosophies and ideas over time and place - but some of them saw women merely as a mean to have children. Pleasure was attained with men. And true, equal love could only be experienced between men. Then again, the Romans did not recognise a relationship between equal men - always the power issue, the younger man in a subservient position.
"Homosexuality - although, of course, the name is a modern invention - has been around, sometimes in sight, sometimes out of it, all through our Western history, and before. Sometimes men - and women - died for it, sometimes they just died inside, hiding the love that dared not speak its name," I allowed myself a smirk.
"Oscar Wilde?"
"No, the lines were not actually written by him. It was quoted at his trial, though."
"Ah. Wasn't he tried for being gay?"
"That is like saying the American civil war was fought for the slaves, Miss Nakimura. There were wider issues at stake. Wilde was notorious, as Byron had been, a century before him. Their tastes were public knowledge but as they were famous - and married - people refused to acknowledge what they knew. Oscar was not condemned for his sexual orientation, if you will, he had been acquitted once already! He went down because he wouldn't - couldn't - shut up. His thoughts were dangerous. Art for art's sake, and all that. It was a harsh sentence - two years hard labour. But he did write his masterpiece in the jail," I remarked, as an afterthought.
"Portrait of Dorian Gray?"
"No, a poem. Ballad of Reading Gaol.
'And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!'
His wife visited him in the jail. His young lover - not once."
"You were there."
"For some of it. After Byron, I stayed away from London for decades but enough time had passed... "
"Byron, was he...?"
"He was notorious for his temper," I smirked again, letting her take that as she wanted to.
"You loved him," she merely remarked, not dwelling on the question whether I had bitten him, too. Instead she asked, "Were you Wilde's lover, as well?"
"Dear God, no. He was... not my type. And I... I was not over Ludwig's death when I returned to London."
She frowned, obviously counting dates. "But wasn't that... surely, it was decades later?"
"My dear Miss Nakimura, how often have you loved? Do you think it is easy getting over someone so... intense as Ludwig?" It hurt me like a silver bullet to talk about this, him, with her, but I needed her to understand that I was not the monster in the story, the Ogre who violated him and caused his death - well, I was the Beast, but even the Beast can love. I needed her to understand so that she would understand what Gabriel meant to me, so that she would stop plotting my demise to 'free' him!
"So where does that leave us?" she was as confused as I with the turn in the discussion. What had we been talking about, anyway? Ah.
"In the beginning. 'All men', as you said. Women in my life have been for fleeting moments of socially accepted pleasure, men have been for companionship. But do you realise how new a thing the modern independent, intelligent woman is? No," I went on as she was about to interrupt, "I'm not trying to claim inferiority of the sex, the women just were not given the opportunities to *think* for themselves, to study, to read... to consider men as something else than purses. Had the women in my youth been like you, Miss Nakimura, maybe I would have sought... companionship in other places, as well."
She looked at me, then said, in a resigned voice, "Call me Grace."
"Friedrich," I smiled at her.
"It doesn't really matter, does it?"
"Excuse me?"
"All that. Names, labels, taboos... You just love him. Because he is who he is. Not because of *what* he is. Not for what he could give you besides... companionship."
"Yes. Is love a part of nature, Grace? It is a part of *my* nature."
"Do you think he will ever let himself love you?"
There was sadness in her voice, but acceptance as well. She could not hate me for loving him, because she did as well. She was over hating me for Ludwig because she had had to accept I had loved him, too. And for the moment she had apparently forgotten the killer in me. We were close in a way we never had been, and never thought we could.
"I can only hope. I... There will never be anyone else again, Grace. Not ever."
* * *
Author: Niki
Fandom: The Gabriel Knight games
Pairing: Gabriel Knight/Friedrich von Glower
Rating: PG-13 for now, I believe
Disclaimer: Jane Jensen & Sierra own them all. No monetary gain, no disrespect, you know the drill.
Series: Sequel to The Relative Brightness Inside
Previous part Prologue
Notes: This will be an on-going story under one general title but all the chapters will be independent stories because I don't know how often the inspiration will strike...;)
Summary: Grace and Friedrich bond. Apologies for the ramblings on history but I needed to find a common ground for them!
Conversations with a Wolf
--------------------------------------
Afterwards, I could not tell how the conversation had started but I was sitting by the fireplace alone with Grace and somehow she had made me talk about my past loves. She was still suspicious of my motives, of course, and was now using this opportunity of Gabriel's absence to interrogate me.
"Have *all* your lovers been men?"
"'Lovers' in the sense you mean... yes."
"What's up with that, anyway? Does turning into a werewolf also turn you gay?"
"No, Miss Nakimura, I do not believe so. And trust me... the 'men' part troubled me almost more than the wolf part, in the beginning. But... during my travels, I encountered more diverse opinions than the Western bigotry..."
"But what about your precious nature?"
She was mocking me, yes, but also willing to discuss the matter with me, engage in a debate of equal minds - whether she realised it or not, her attitude towards me had changed over the weeks we had been forced to co-habitate in the Schloss.
"The scientists have come to realise during recent studies that even some animals have sex for pure pleasure. This view was strongly denied earlier and still faces considerable opposition," she raised her eyebrow, waiting for me to get to the point, and I smiled slightly before going on, "And these species also show homosexual behaviour. But who can tell? When an older tomcat mounts a younger male, is it a show of power, the lack of options, or an actual show of pleasure for its own sake? After all, animal sexuality has always been a borderline issue. Often, what in animal kingdom is called 'mating' would be called 'rape' in a human society. But I am not an animal in that sense, Miss Nakimura. I am, also, a man."
I paused, secure in the knowledge I had her attention now.
"And as far as humans go... The Greek believed - which is of course a misleading thing to say as 'the Greek' held a variety of philosophies and ideas over time and place - but some of them saw women merely as a mean to have children. Pleasure was attained with men. And true, equal love could only be experienced between men. Then again, the Romans did not recognise a relationship between equal men - always the power issue, the younger man in a subservient position.
"Homosexuality - although, of course, the name is a modern invention - has been around, sometimes in sight, sometimes out of it, all through our Western history, and before. Sometimes men - and women - died for it, sometimes they just died inside, hiding the love that dared not speak its name," I allowed myself a smirk.
"Oscar Wilde?"
"No, the lines were not actually written by him. It was quoted at his trial, though."
"Ah. Wasn't he tried for being gay?"
"That is like saying the American civil war was fought for the slaves, Miss Nakimura. There were wider issues at stake. Wilde was notorious, as Byron had been, a century before him. Their tastes were public knowledge but as they were famous - and married - people refused to acknowledge what they knew. Oscar was not condemned for his sexual orientation, if you will, he had been acquitted once already! He went down because he wouldn't - couldn't - shut up. His thoughts were dangerous. Art for art's sake, and all that. It was a harsh sentence - two years hard labour. But he did write his masterpiece in the jail," I remarked, as an afterthought.
"Portrait of Dorian Gray?"
"No, a poem. Ballad of Reading Gaol.
'And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!'
His wife visited him in the jail. His young lover - not once."
"You were there."
"For some of it. After Byron, I stayed away from London for decades but enough time had passed... "
"Byron, was he...?"
"He was notorious for his temper," I smirked again, letting her take that as she wanted to.
"You loved him," she merely remarked, not dwelling on the question whether I had bitten him, too. Instead she asked, "Were you Wilde's lover, as well?"
"Dear God, no. He was... not my type. And I... I was not over Ludwig's death when I returned to London."
She frowned, obviously counting dates. "But wasn't that... surely, it was decades later?"
"My dear Miss Nakimura, how often have you loved? Do you think it is easy getting over someone so... intense as Ludwig?" It hurt me like a silver bullet to talk about this, him, with her, but I needed her to understand that I was not the monster in the story, the Ogre who violated him and caused his death - well, I was the Beast, but even the Beast can love. I needed her to understand so that she would understand what Gabriel meant to me, so that she would stop plotting my demise to 'free' him!
"So where does that leave us?" she was as confused as I with the turn in the discussion. What had we been talking about, anyway? Ah.
"In the beginning. 'All men', as you said. Women in my life have been for fleeting moments of socially accepted pleasure, men have been for companionship. But do you realise how new a thing the modern independent, intelligent woman is? No," I went on as she was about to interrupt, "I'm not trying to claim inferiority of the sex, the women just were not given the opportunities to *think* for themselves, to study, to read... to consider men as something else than purses. Had the women in my youth been like you, Miss Nakimura, maybe I would have sought... companionship in other places, as well."
She looked at me, then said, in a resigned voice, "Call me Grace."
"Friedrich," I smiled at her.
"It doesn't really matter, does it?"
"Excuse me?"
"All that. Names, labels, taboos... You just love him. Because he is who he is. Not because of *what* he is. Not for what he could give you besides... companionship."
"Yes. Is love a part of nature, Grace? It is a part of *my* nature."
"Do you think he will ever let himself love you?"
There was sadness in her voice, but acceptance as well. She could not hate me for loving him, because she did as well. She was over hating me for Ludwig because she had had to accept I had loved him, too. And for the moment she had apparently forgotten the killer in me. We were close in a way we never had been, and never thought we could.
"I can only hope. I... There will never be anyone else again, Grace. Not ever."
* * *