Memorare

This…isn't happening…
The drow's palms had broken out into a cold sweat to match the perspiration that beaded the dark flesh of his forehead.  His attempt to maintain his exorbitant amount of self-control was failing rapidly.
This can't be happening…
Ilphrym ground his teeth down so hard on his lower lip that he drew blood.  The heady, metallic taste of sanguinary brine filled his mouth; he hardly noticed.  His back was flush against the cavernous wall as though somehow he could meld with it and disappear.  He would have liked for nothing more; anything to rid himself of the spectral vision before him.
The gloaming looked up at him with the same enigmatic eyes that he had tried to forget for so long, their plaintive innocence twisting a knot in his stomach.  Ilphrym's heart beat so heavily he could swear it would crack his ribs and puncture, and that would be the end of him.
"May I help you?" the winged creature asked, and the euphonic voice almost caused Ilphrym to visibly tremble.  The slivered pupils dilated and constricted with the ever shifting fae light that Zar'nitra used to magically decorate her chamber.  The moth-like wings opened and closed with apprehension, their movement betraying the gloaming's growing anxiety the longer the drow stood staring at him in silence.  The slender plane-touched cleared his throat softly.  "Mistress isn't in, if you were looking for her."
I'm mad.  I've gone mad.  It can't be…
"Llwydnos," he whispered, the name feeling as heavy and anathema on his tongue as a particularly vile curse.  The gloaming cocked his head, blinking rapidly.  A stray ball of faerie fire passed close to his face, and Ilphrym could see the atramentous irises like two deep sapphire chips set against the ashen pallor of the fragile creature's flesh.  The rush of beholding such exotic beauty was overwhelming—as it always had been.
"Are you speaking to me?" the lilting voice queried this time.  The furry wings snapped into a forward position as the lithe little creature stood.  Each wing possessed a swirling inky pattern that resembled a second pair of eyes, scrutinizing and cold whereas the gloaming's actual optics were doleful and lonely.  "I don't understand that word."  
Ilphrym watched the contemplative design as though it could actually see him, and something in his mind brought him back to rationality.  Llwydnos had not possessed these markings.  Ergo, there was only one solution he could posit.
"Who are you?" he growled.
The gloaming shrank back a little, and only then did Ilphrym notice the studded leather collar the plane-touched fae wore.  He was tethered to the wall by a miniscule length of enchanted chain that Zar'nitra was fond of using to force her pets to remain with her so long as she found them pleasing.  
"Mistress calls me Ryld."
Ilphrym considered a moment.  "That's a drow name.  What is your other name?"  He reached back into his memory to things long-repressed.  "The name you gave yourself…do you have an adult name?  Who are you?"
The gloaming's eyes were wide, but he was nothing if not obedient.  Zar'nitra had probably scared the willowy plane-touched out of his wits to make him so.  "The name I took is Cof'am, Master."
"Ilphrym."  Zar'nitra's sharp alto echoed off the chamber walls, and Ilphrym turned to see her leaning in the doorjamb, snake-headed whip in hand.  Before the male drow had time to react, Zar'nitra had crossed the room in three steps and taken the gloaming into her arms.
"I'll thank you not to rile up my new favorite toy," she sneered, ruffling the shoulder-length cropping of hair that framed the gloaming's narrow face.  Though his eyes were fixed on the drowess, Ilphrym could see through his peripheral vision that the winged creature was still sizing him up.  He desperately needed to leave the room; the only thing he needed more was to not raise Zar'nitra's suspicions by doing so.
"My apologies, Mistress Zar'nitra," Ilphrym replied automatically, carefully not looking at the gloaming in her arms.  "I can see that you are busy.  I will return later, if that is your wish."
Zar'nitra shrugged carelessly.  "Much later, Ilphrym.  I intend to be busy for a while."
With a silent nod, Ilphrym bowed to the drowess, still purposely avoiding the gloaming's doleful stare.  He turned on his heels and strode out of the room, feeling the sweet rush of relief the minute the door closed behind him and he was away from both sets of the gloaming's eyes, real and false, one set pleading and the other judging.  
It had to be their eyes, he concluded.  Eyes that seemed to seek out the innermost secrets of your soul and rip them through your flesh like barbed wire raking across your heart.  He wanted to get as far away from Zar'nitra's room as possible.
Ilphrym was disinclined to spend a lot of time in his own quarters, but the paltry room allotted to him allowed for an iota of privacy, at least for the time being.  He sank onto the edge of the pitiful cot that had long-since been stripped of its bedding.  The males of Gode'ar were not above thieving blankets from anyone who had been absent from his bed for any given time.  
Slowly, and almost of their own accord, his fingers traced the spiral pattern of tattooing that curled along his chest.  It had been so long, he'd almost forgotten why he had himself marked in such a fashion.
In retrospect, Ilphrym could see that he'd been a fool.  Cof'am's hair was choppy and short, whereas Llwydnos's had been long and fine as indigo silk.  And his former lover's eyes had been a softer gray than the hard blue of Zar'nitra's pet.  And, of course, Llwydnos's wings has been gentle and inviting and not possessed of the sharp, staring lifeless eyes that decorated Cof'am's mothy appendages.  There was similarity of appearance, but a close inspection would have proven that Cof'am was not the shadowy ghost Ilphrym had first expected.  The drow sighed, cross with himself for being so spooked by a long-dead memory and even angrier at how suddenly he was still able to recall just how Llwydnos had looked and felt, and how the gloaming had made him feel.
He stood, tugging his chemise closed tighter across his chest, concealing the languid swirling tattoos.  For a moment his fingertips rested against the dull, rhythmic motion of his heart.  With tremendous force of will-power, Ilprhym pushed the residual cognizance back down deep, far beyond his reaches until it seemed there no longer remained any inkling that he had once been loved, and had loved in kind.  He smirked as he left the room, closing the door tightly behind him.