Long Live the King!



His Royal Leppardness

He walks in the snow before me. Ivory-coloured tents mark his path on either side as he strides their long corridor, deep in thought. It is past dusk. He looks toward the trees, the sky a deepening pink and orange, as night falls on the encampment. Yes, an encampment. I walk behind him as a spectre who haunts another’s step, seen yet unseen.

His cloak sways languorously about his shoulders and the length of his body as he takes each masterful step. The collar of the cloak is trimmed with fur and long blond hair flows in lazy waves to the middle of his shoulder blades. His step is quiet, a mere breath upon the frozen landscape.

Suddenly, he stops. He turns his head as if he senses a presence. He turns his head a little more to the left and sets his jaw deeper into his cloak. His eyes are the only things that move as he surveys the emptiness, trying to sense something – or someone. I am quiet, a mere spectator. I wonder if it is me he senses. I lose myself in his face: the length of golden hair, the strong nose, and those eyes; those beautiful green eyes that shine like jewels and bring lesser mortals to their knees with one brief encounter. In this moment, they become mere slits as they quietly survey his surroundings, trying to detect the source of his distraction. He is still, then he moves again. He is satisfied that the source of his distraction will cause him no harm.

I am peaceful here, watching him, yet I must go. I have been fortunate to have this chance again. It has been a long time. It has been too long. I must come again. 

 

* * *

I did not write this piece. I did a little editing, but the bulk of it, the true content, belongs to Ter. She consented to me posting it here, in celebration of today’s dual birthday. The man in this scene is Lucius Aurelius, also known as Irfe’s Luko, a character so complex that it’s easier to get under his skin than inside his head and believe me, you do not want to get under his skin.

 

Lucius was inspired – as so many of my heroes are inspired – by a rock star. Yep, this imagined child belongs to Joe Elliott, the green-eyed god front man of Def Leppard. Lucius was “born” in the spring of 2002, when Ter had a revelation while watching Joe work the arena in the Leps’ In the Round, In Your Face concert DVD. A diehard Joe fan for years, she envisioned a character possessed of his passion and presence, and asked me to write a story about him.

 

Eleven years and 6.5 novels later, Lucius is still going strong. So, I believe, is his birth father, though in truth it’s been some years since we attended a Lep gig. For one thing, the band rarely comes north of the US border these days, and when they do, they play pretty much the same set list every time. When last we saw Papa Joe, Songs from the Sparkle Lounge had just been released and the band was still playing songs off the greatest hits package from two years earlier. Or twenty years earlier, since most of the tunes were hits in the late 1980s.

 

But enough whining about what I cannot change. This is a day of celebration, of recognizing the icon who sired a hero and the hero who spawned a whole new fictional world. The man born on August 1, 1959, set the tone for the biggest, most powerful, most fearsome, most complicated and ultimately the most respected character (by me, anyway) in my cast of thousands. I don’t know how alike father and son may be in nature, but one thing is indisputable – they are both lions.

 

Hear them roar!