WE WISH YOU A MERRY GENERIC HOLIDAY WE WISH YOU A MERRY GENERIC HOLIDAY...
There was a sweet, pungent smell that permeated everything around Withywoods. Our house. I heaved a sigh, my discontent returning as I tried to recall the details of my dream - the details about the Fool. It had ended, I recalled, at the last time I’d seen him before he vanished - as he took away the fragile thread of Skill that had bound us together. For the rest - for the rest, I had only vague recollections of their startling vividity, and of him, his face, every detail of his expression.
It wasn’t the first time, by any means. I had dreamed of him before. Often, since that final and terribly permanent parting, always waking with a queer restlessness in my bones and the skin on my wrist tingling with something very near to agony.
I wasn’t unhappy - no, not by far. I was here, with Molly and Nettle and Burrich’s children as well - but when I thought of what it had cost - it was a painful reckoning, and the one thing I regretted the most was the loss of the Fool.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus and remember, but all I could think of were the memories that seemed now to form a sum of a friendship that was pitifully small and meaningless, and one that consisted mostly of apologies and misunderstandings and anger. It was not a very encouraging picture.
But standing there, a fragment of a dream floated by and I snatched and clung to it with the desperations of a drowning man. Me; me in a dead body, staring up at his tear-streaked face that wasn’t his at all, but mine.
“Fitz, oh Fitz, what have you done?”
“Take my life and live it,” I heard myself say. “I willingly take your death…”
My fingers found a curious lump in the pocket of my hastily donned overcoat, and I drew it out, trying to examine it in the wan light the low moon cast. It was the Fool’s carving, and just for a moment I almost imagined I could hear his voice again, mocking, teasing, and always something else, perhaps a hint of yearning.
It hurt more than I expected it to, and I thrust the stone away, my other hand absently rubbing the now bare place on my wrist as if hoping to remake the connection that had been permanently lost.
Perhaps I knew something of the Fool’s longing now.
I could feel myself reaching, questing for something far beyond reach: Nighteyes, perhaps, or Beloved - they were nearly the same, now. Both lost to me, irrevocably and completely.
Not lost, just changed.
Nighteyes! I threw the thought out wildly, frantically, but whatever had remained of him was already gone again. Fool! Even more wild, that cry, casting my Skill out randomly without a hope of finding him.
I stared at the silence for a long time, wondering if I would ever be whole again, and reached into my pocket to touch the stone again. I started as the Fool’s voice sounded in my ear as though he stood just beside me. Fitz - thank you. A pause, then, brief, as if he wanted to say something else. And finally, I will miss you.
I closed my eyes, his voice a balm to my restlessness and somehow a release. I gathered the Skill and sent a thought winging out, knowing he would never hear it and perversely hoping that he would, somehow, someday in his travels to unimagined, undiscovered lands, look up and hear my voice, just beside him, in his mind.
I miss you, Beloved.
I put my hands in my pockets, carefully avoiding the memory stone, turned, and trudged back toward the house, the stinging of my eyes from cold or the beginning of tears, I do not know.
I hope you like it!
I believe the next person to receive a present is going to be the lovely
assimbya. See you all tomorrow.
(And will probably post the other Robin Hobb fic I've written later tonight.)
It wasn’t the first time, by any means. I had dreamed of him before. Often, since that final and terribly permanent parting, always waking with a queer restlessness in my bones and the skin on my wrist tingling with something very near to agony.
I wasn’t unhappy - no, not by far. I was here, with Molly and Nettle and Burrich’s children as well - but when I thought of what it had cost - it was a painful reckoning, and the one thing I regretted the most was the loss of the Fool.
I closed my eyes and tried to focus and remember, but all I could think of were the memories that seemed now to form a sum of a friendship that was pitifully small and meaningless, and one that consisted mostly of apologies and misunderstandings and anger. It was not a very encouraging picture.
But standing there, a fragment of a dream floated by and I snatched and clung to it with the desperations of a drowning man. Me; me in a dead body, staring up at his tear-streaked face that wasn’t his at all, but mine.
“Fitz, oh Fitz, what have you done?”
“Take my life and live it,” I heard myself say. “I willingly take your death…”
My fingers found a curious lump in the pocket of my hastily donned overcoat, and I drew it out, trying to examine it in the wan light the low moon cast. It was the Fool’s carving, and just for a moment I almost imagined I could hear his voice again, mocking, teasing, and always something else, perhaps a hint of yearning.
It hurt more than I expected it to, and I thrust the stone away, my other hand absently rubbing the now bare place on my wrist as if hoping to remake the connection that had been permanently lost.
Perhaps I knew something of the Fool’s longing now.
I could feel myself reaching, questing for something far beyond reach: Nighteyes, perhaps, or Beloved - they were nearly the same, now. Both lost to me, irrevocably and completely.
Not lost, just changed.
Nighteyes! I threw the thought out wildly, frantically, but whatever had remained of him was already gone again. Fool! Even more wild, that cry, casting my Skill out randomly without a hope of finding him.
I stared at the silence for a long time, wondering if I would ever be whole again, and reached into my pocket to touch the stone again. I started as the Fool’s voice sounded in my ear as though he stood just beside me. Fitz - thank you. A pause, then, brief, as if he wanted to say something else. And finally, I will miss you.
I closed my eyes, his voice a balm to my restlessness and somehow a release. I gathered the Skill and sent a thought winging out, knowing he would never hear it and perversely hoping that he would, somehow, someday in his travels to unimagined, undiscovered lands, look up and hear my voice, just beside him, in his mind.
I miss you, Beloved.
I put my hands in my pockets, carefully avoiding the memory stone, turned, and trudged back toward the house, the stinging of my eyes from cold or the beginning of tears, I do not know.
I hope you like it!
I believe the next person to receive a present is going to be the lovely
assimbya. See you all tomorrow.
(And will probably post the other Robin Hobb fic I've written later tonight.)