Chapter Text
“My liberty,” Ariel murmurs reticently; his master cannot help but ask why, why now, why with such intent.
Ariel closes his eyes, can see the face. The weathered man with eyes like frozen water, a voice that stops air itself in its boundless gravity; the face will not leave him, the presence of this man more acute than anything Ariel has known before.
“My potent Master,” Ariel breathes, his soul in the skies. “I have served you well.”
Prospero agrees willingly with that statement; his wandering spirit cannot be retained indefinitely. He, too, can conjure the image; a man of Alonso’s guards, a subject of his enemy. He is a tangible entity, against Ariel’s transparent existence.
“You cannot love a mortal,” Prospero tells him, counselling the young spirit; his body bends towards the conjured face, expression yearning for a syllable from the mortal that has captured him quite entirely.
Ariel is not of this world, nor a neighbouring world. He is something removed entirely, and he cannot bind himself to humanity. “Speak with him,” Prospero grants. “We will further discuss your freedom then.”
The being is vanished.
He finds the man in a heartbeat, appeared to him alone. His gaze speaks of mistrust, and something like cynicism. “Your ship was lost,” Ariel says simply, watching the man so closely. “I reside here, I can help you.”
“And who exactly are you?” Bond asked in a perfectly gravelled voice, his inflexion far removed from the norms of their island. The thing in front of him is young, absurdly beautiful in a breakable type of way. There is something odd about him that Bond can’t define.
“I…” the boy, the young man, hesitates. “Ariel. I am Ariel.”
“Bond, James Bond,” the man responds. Ariel’s smile is starlight, and Bond can feel something, some draw. He wants to learn more, see more. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ariel.”
---
Ariel leads James Bond through the undergrowth of their island, sensing the convoluted promises of darker trees and darker creatures, revelling in the company of this beautiful man.
He looked like he has lived almost as long as Ariel has now, with experience and honesty that is never found on the faces of mortal men. Ariel helps Bond trip through shadows, finding places to rest and to eat, and slowly, very slowly, Bond grows to trust him.
It is not difficult, to remain corporeal. It is harder to pretend he doesn’t seek more, however, that his body doesn’t bend towards air like a bow, aiming him inexorably towards the stars.
He skirts perfectly around questions as to his lineage, and diverts the questions onto Bond himself; he discovers fragments of his past, revels in the information that topples from him like water, James’s stories, all his now.
Ariel points out the mountains, all cloud-capped, and Bond asks who he is, finally.
“I am such stuff as dreams are made on,” Ariel replies lightly, laughing at Bond’s expression. He cannot lie; Bond knows he is not of human origin, his confusion growing in tandem with inadvertent trust. “A spirit, James. I am a spirit of air. I can become tangible, and I wish to remain as such.”
Bond takes a moment, blinks, considers. “It’s a brave new world out there,” he replies looking Ariel up and down. “I suppose you could fit in quite perfectly.”
He moves in a heartbeat, and is kissing Bond. He has never kissed another person in his life, and certainly never a mortal. He has never been so close to a mortal like Bond, all strength and breathtaking elegance. He can speak in the twitch of muscle, and his words can contain vacuous silence.
“Take me with you, when you go,” Ariel murmurs to him; there is freedom, so much freedom, and he wants it. Wants to taste the world, with James.
“Yes,” Bond replies, tracing the almost-truth of Ariel skin with a long finger, as though trying to see the spirit beneath. One day perhaps, Ariel will show him. Not yet, however. Not today.
Instead, they kiss like water touching, and do not consider further problems.
---
Freedom is dizzying.
The thought that returns, again and again, is that there is so much world to see. The beauty of the world, a perfectly formed and infinite space, where he can vanish into crowds of more people than he knew existed, yet still be everything, still be the king of that infinite space, to James.
Love is intoxicating.
Ariel feels he could be almost human, almost a man; Sycorax, forever ago, made him nothing. Drained him of all he was, made him a walking shadow. Now, he bears a charmed life, so in the sun, basking in the man who gave him freedom, gave him love where he didn’t seek it, where he had only hoped for companionship, barely daring to imagine he would be loved.
“Are you sure?” Bond asks quietly, snapping Ariel out of his reverie; the spirit looks at him, almost confused. “This has always been your home, and I don’t have the right to take you away. I’m not a steady companion, you know, I could put you in danger, Italy is a large place…”
“I would not wish any companion in the world but you,” Ariel said, with breathtaking honesty.
“Please don’t fall in love with me,” Bond told him gently, cupping the young man’s face in his hands. Ariel’s mouth twitched in a smile, and he kissed Bond lightly, so corporeal, yet somehow untouchable. Bond cannot lose the sense that he could fly away at any second, rip himself away from Bond’s life and find himself elsewhere.
“Too late, my James,” Ariel breathed. “Do you love me?”
“Never doubt it,” Bond replied, brushing further kisses to Ariels’s hands, lips sliding over the knuckles, eternity in his lips and eyes. “Ariel, I love you beyond all thought. If you wish to come, if you wish to stay with me, I won’t argue.”
“As long as I love you, the chaos stays at bay,” Ariel murmured, tracing fingers over Bond’s arms, holding him in place.
Bond folded the spirit into his arms, held him close. “To Italy,” the man murmured. Ariel nodded, ethereal, beautiful. Freedom.
It was dizzying.