Bird of a Nest - Chapter 25: Chapter 25

Ryraso woke up too hot. Shifting uncomfortably, Ryraso opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the royal nest. He had wanted to sleep with the boys but the others had insisted on normalcy. Normalcy meant the boys sleeping in their rooms and Ryraso with the royals. Ryraso didn't agree with that. Eyeri had clung on to whoever had sat next to him that evening. Aw'endo had stuck close to Fetmar too. It felt wrong to just let them sleep elsewhere after the revelations of the day.
Or maybe being back in the link was distorting his mind. That was possible.
Unhappily, Ryraso turned over and looked at his sleeping mates. Soon to be mates. They looked peaceful, Nel'os drooling slightly. Dyn'ad was snuggled up to Tai'ray with Tai'ray's head under his chin. Their wings were over him acting as blankets but it was still oddly too hot. Ryraso smiled fondly, curling up again and trying to fall back to sleep again.
Only, he couldn't. The dark feelings twisting painfully in his stomach. Exhaling, Ryraso sat up slowly. Nel'os shifted, but no one else moved. Ryraso waited another moment for any other signs that someone else was awake before moving. He slipped out of the nest, Ryraso leant against the door. It was chilly that morning without being surrounded by feathers and bodies. He walked to his room only to be stopped by a guard.
"Good Morning, Healer Ryraso," the male k'nairi greeted, a hand stopping Ryraso from moving further.
"Morning," Ryraso said warily.
"I apologize but our orders are to keep you with your mates, unless you are accompanied by them," the man commented firmly. "Please return to the Royal Nesting chamber." The other guards shifted, clearly ready to force Ryraso back to the room if needed. Some looking more joyful about it than others.
The shift was almost painful. Ryraso suddenly wished he had his rapier. An almost alien feeling. He felt more like he was facing Dmar grunts than the palace guard. "I can't sleep," Ryraso said calmly, having no intension of letting the guard boss him around. He had defeated them in the ring during Fetmar excerises, he wasn't scared of them. Only he was wearing only a tunic and underwear at the moment. This wasn't a battlefield.
"Not our problem," one of the other guard snorted.
Ryraso took a step forward and they gathered around him. In some a weird few moments of Ryraso trying to dogde out of the way and being caught rather like a struggling toddler. He was firmly shoved back into the room with a slap on the arse that had Ryraso shivering at. The dim sound of laughter from behind the door.
He growled unhappily and sat on the bed again, the others still asleep. That was unpleasent. He started tapping his foot on the ground. He didn't like this. Suddenly every instinct to run from the royal returned. What was he doing? Why was he letting this happen to him? To Eyeri? Why wasn't he trying to escape and instead of making these plans to live here? Only he wasn't living. He was doing some weird half-life where he let himself be pushed away and it wasn't right. Was it?
"Where were you going, love?" Dyn'ad asked, in his ear.
"Anywhere but here," Ryraso breathed, leaning backwards. Dyn'ad hands caught him and hugged him from behind, kissing his shoulder.  "I dislike the guards."
"I gave the order for a reason," Dyn'ad reminded.
Ryraso flushed as he remembered that reason. He snuggled into Dyn'ad and placed his own arms over Dyn'ad's around his waist. "I'm not sure this is working for me," he commented softly. "I just keep remembering the fact I wanted to be courted and treated with respect and I can't leave the room to get dressed and have a walk," he rambled his voice getting louder before he quietened again, not wanting to wake Tai'ray or Nel'os. "This is exactly what I didn't want."
"Ok," Dyn'ad nodded. "In the morning we can talk about an alternative plan. The point of this is so you don't get yourself worked up on your own and act destructively. Not that you question being here with us."
"Jury is still out on that," Ryraso admitted unhappily. It was a strange thing. When he wasn't fighting it, they all worked well together, but it didn't change what had happened over the last eight years.
"Not much we can do about that," Dyn'ad hummed sadly. "Let say I ended this. All of it. Spilt all four of us up and left Tai'ray alone as the Winglord. Assuming he wasn't immediately pulled from the position, I would have effectively abandoned him. Our relationship started as toxic and wrong but it developed into something genuine. We can't change how it started, we could only change what it was and now we can only continue to do our best for it to be healthy. Doesn't always work, but its where we are."
"And me?" Ryraso challenged, his voice just a touch harsher than he meant it to be.
Dyn'ad grip around his waist tightened and Ryraso could feel Dyn'ad chin against the crown of his head. "We fell in love with you before all of this. Maybe we are destined to only have relationships that are tainted. If we had told you we loved you before Loror came, maybe things would have been different."
"War still would have happened," Ryraso agreed sadly, understanding that implication.  "The fact of how you started still would have thrown me."
"Maybe, we should stop this," Dyn'ad offered.
Ryraso felt the colour in his face drain at those words. Horror filling him. Everything that had happened. Everything he had endured, had forced Eyeri and Fetmar endure... It would amount to nothing. He pulled away and just looked at Dyn'ad. Dyn'ad looked at him back seriously and the only real sensation Ryraso was aware of was of the sharp stabbing pains in his chest. Was this the moment then? When the facade dropped and the truth about the entire situation came crashing down.
"Is this a game to you?" Ryraso demanded, not caring about the level of volume of his voice this time.
The smile he got back was almost like something out of a nightmare. Dyn'ad reached forward and cupped his face before kissing him passionately, almost violently. Ryraso almost fighting to pull away, still too horrified by that statement. His chest jumped painfully again as Dyn'ad pinned him to the bed below them and continued to kiss him, clutching to his arms and legs.
"Dyn'ad!" Ryraso fought between breaths, tangled up in Dyn'ad limbs now.
Dyn'ad beamed down at him, kissing his nose this time.  "Oh, my dear healer. I don't mean like the way you are fearing. I'm sorry for making you think that," he smiled almost glowing.
"Why the fucking hell do you look so happy then?" Ryraso challenged, not quite comforted yet.
"Because you weren't happy at that thought," Dyn'ad explained softly, hand stroking down Ryraso's thigh. "If you truly wanted nothing to do with us, you would be happy. You weren't." The relieve Dyn'ad's voice was a different kind of pain when placed next to Ryraso's still lingering doubts about Dyn'ad loving him.
"If you didn't mean it like that, what did you mean it as?" Ryraso growled through gritted teeth.
"Yes, good question," Nel'os sounded in. Ryraso tilted his head upwards and found Tai'ray and Nel'os looking at the two of them with equal looks of horror and confusion.
Dyn'ad kissed the underside of his neck and Ryraso flushed, shifting and trying to break out of the hold he was in. "You said it yourself, you want to be courted. Only we pretty much forced you into our nest the moment you got here. Maybe some of this anxiety you have been having is because of that. We chained you into this and no matter how you feel about us, that going to cause you conflict. We can't fix this the way we fixed our relationship, so maybe we need to take a step or two back." Dyn'ad rumbled, pressing kisses to Ryraso's chest where the collar of his nightshirt dipped low.
"I think, this suggests something different," Ryraso pointed out, very flustered by this entire hold.
"We love you dearly," Dyn'ad shrugged, letting go and letting Ryraso's body drop to the bed. "And I want no doubt about that."
"You're suggesting letting Ryraso move back into the consort rooms," Tai'ray said softly, but unable to keep the horror out of his voice at the suggestion. "But we only just got Ry in here without panicking!"
"He shouldn't have been panicking in the first place, we should have let him settle in again before all this. I think we should move him into one of the rooms next to Ang'as or Mo'sit. The boys can stay in the consort rooms, but I think Ryraso needs to build a life here again before feeling forced into being a royal. Well, more than you already are," Dyn'ad offered, pulling Ryraso so he was sitting up again. "Everyone knows he's claimed so while they will talk, they won't try anything."
"One would hope," Ryraso breathed, head spinning from this idea.
"Ryraso?" Nel'os offered, sounding equally as horrified by this idea as Tai'ray. "What do you think of all this?"
Ryraso felt almost sorry for them only, the sensation of freedom soared him in. Something in his chest loosened at the idea. The evergrowing knot of tension that had been overwhelming him finally letting him breathe. The reins had been too tight and maybe now, he could escape them for a moment. He grinned at Dyn'ad and wrapped his arms around Dyn'ad shoulders. Finally someone was listening for what  "Please," he admitted. "Maybe just to the consort rooms for now, but please."
"No," Tai'ray breathed.
"Yes," Dyn'ad warned. "Ryraso is our partner. It's time we made some effort to treat him as such and not just as a toy."
"But," Nel'os said distressed, both Nel'os and Tai'ray's wings puffing up like something dangerous was in the room. "This is what we wanted? All four of us in the Royal Nest. You're happy here!"
"Except for when I'm punching the walls or desperately wanting to hide somewhere. Or suffering from nightmares from my guilt about accepting this," Ryraso listed off, regretting the words as Nel'os and Tai'rays faces dropped. "Guys, I love you dearly. But I just need a little bit of breathing space. I won't ask to go further than the consort rooms but please. Let me be."