[Gormenghast] "Travelling Companions" (PG)
Author's Note: Originally written for comment_fic Any, any, "...two paths diverged..." Juno/Titus, set toward the end of the third book.
She hated to let him go, this peculiar, solemn young man with the eyes like smoke at twilight; but if there was one thing she had learned during her years as Muzzlehatch's lover, it was that something which desired freedom could not be kept confined.
Granted, he had shared this knowledge with her to his own folly, since it had, in the end, cost him her love and companionship. But in some measure, she had still cared for that carefree man with his menagerie. The youth, at first, seemed to be just another of Muzzlehatch's strays, but in time, she had looked deeper into the youth. And in looking deeper, she realized there was more to this young man than his mere appetites and his youthful desire for adventure. He, like she, had desired freedom: she wished to be free to love whomever she wished, but he wanted something greater. She had not heard of Gormenghast till this young man who claimed he was its lord had told her about it. But from what he had described, it seemed a horrible place, whatever it was and he was clearly right in wanting to be rid of it.
So she had let him go. It was not completely her doing: he had become restless and she had not held him back, but at the same time, she too had tired of his awkwardness.
And yet she had regretted it. She regretted that their paths diverging, and so she had set out following him, asking wherever and of whomever she could, if they had seen a violet-eyed young man named Titus, who claimed to be the lord of a manor they had never heard of before.
At length she found him, in the clutches of a factory mogul’s mad daughter, who had set a snare for the young man’s sanity. She found him in the rubble of an abandoned house, where the girl had prepared a spectacle that japed at the young man’s kingdom. When she found Titus again, Juno could sense his sanity crumbling, eroded by his journey through strange places, and by this mockery of his realm.
And so she took her young lover back. She regretted that she had not believed him, regretted that she had not kept him closer. He was only too willing to return to her, and begged her to bring him as far as the borders of Gormenghast, that he might see that it existed, that it was real.
She took him into her personal craft and took him where he begged to be brought. She regretted that their paths would again diverge, but this time, she would not depart alone. This time, when Titus bade her farewell and struck out toward the stones that marked the borders of Gormenghast, the line of Groan would live on through her...
She hated to let him go, this peculiar, solemn young man with the eyes like smoke at twilight; but if there was one thing she had learned during her years as Muzzlehatch's lover, it was that something which desired freedom could not be kept confined.
Granted, he had shared this knowledge with her to his own folly, since it had, in the end, cost him her love and companionship. But in some measure, she had still cared for that carefree man with his menagerie. The youth, at first, seemed to be just another of Muzzlehatch's strays, but in time, she had looked deeper into the youth. And in looking deeper, she realized there was more to this young man than his mere appetites and his youthful desire for adventure. He, like she, had desired freedom: she wished to be free to love whomever she wished, but he wanted something greater. She had not heard of Gormenghast till this young man who claimed he was its lord had told her about it. But from what he had described, it seemed a horrible place, whatever it was and he was clearly right in wanting to be rid of it.
So she had let him go. It was not completely her doing: he had become restless and she had not held him back, but at the same time, she too had tired of his awkwardness.
And yet she had regretted it. She regretted that their paths diverging, and so she had set out following him, asking wherever and of whomever she could, if they had seen a violet-eyed young man named Titus, who claimed to be the lord of a manor they had never heard of before.
At length she found him, in the clutches of a factory mogul’s mad daughter, who had set a snare for the young man’s sanity. She found him in the rubble of an abandoned house, where the girl had prepared a spectacle that japed at the young man’s kingdom. When she found Titus again, Juno could sense his sanity crumbling, eroded by his journey through strange places, and by this mockery of his realm.
And so she took her young lover back. She regretted that she had not believed him, regretted that she had not kept him closer. He was only too willing to return to her, and begged her to bring him as far as the borders of Gormenghast, that he might see that it existed, that it was real.
She took him into her personal craft and took him where he begged to be brought. She regretted that their paths would again diverge, but this time, she would not depart alone. This time, when Titus bade her farewell and struck out toward the stones that marked the borders of Gormenghast, the line of Groan would live on through her...