[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 04:55:11 UTC
The wind tells him where Lan is without him even having to ask and he thinks maybe the hint was a fair one, even if the switch still isn't. He isn't okay with this and he won't ever be, really, even in retrospect, but he finds he holds a frustration that holds more confusion than anger for the wind walker and that in itself is, of course, only cause for more confounding things when he has too much time to think. Vicious cycle. Fickle weather. Something, something, something. Peter has no words for it all and yet he seeks this person out, not knowing what to ask next or how to go about the asking even if he did.
Still, the beach is one of Peter's favorite places in this strange, strange City, or rather, outside of its proper, and when he comes to rest on one of the numberless dunes, he glances to his right before spotting the only other person present. How simple it has become for him to travel on air, and yet how quickly he would relinquish it to feel whole again, and that is the true difference between someone who is something--like the wind, like Lan--and someone who is loyal to but separate from it--like Peter.
He loves the wind, the sky, the freedom. But this isn't who he is, who his family depends on, who the new king of Narnia trusts, who Peter himself knows. This isn't about a lack of a pulse but it is about the lack of a heart, and it's not the kind that will be found in anatomy books.
Lucy, Edmund, Susan, Caspian, they could all tell anyone else.
For Peter, the heart is in his mouth, in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, in the mantle he fell into and picked up years ago when stepping through a wardrobe. He hasn't lost himself because this is still him, in many senses, in this body that is not his, but he is not complete and no puzzle piece was ever made to fit more than two shapes.
"I don't suppose you're satisfied yet," the would-be-blond says, not loudly and not quietly, not angrily, and not happily. It is a way to begin a conversation, and it is a point of import, and it is something he wonders, because he doesn't know Lan, and it is always worth asking.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 05:07:34 UTC
Lan is quiet, for at least a moment, but smiling. It's easy to smile, he thinks, here, easier to smile than to show his true feelings. He loves the water and the beach, he loves sitting up against the white sand and seeing where three elements meet. He loves thinking that once upon a time, he would sit on the beach with another boy, a boy whose hair was made of blue floss and whose skin was as white as the sand and they would talk about the ocean and the wind. They were a fish and a bird, and it was something that even Ri didn't know about.
Lan missed his world, but he missed being alive more.
"You found me," he said with a soft humor in his voice. "That's a good start." He looks up from where she's sitting and the wind moves around him.
No, he wasn't satisfied. It wasn't about fun, or cheating anyone out of their life. It was about...
Lan wasn't altogether sure. Some of it was life, and some of it was love, and some of it was just the novelty of it. Maybe that made him a bad person, but if Lan were to be honest (and sometimes, he is) he would admit that part of it was the novelty of a new body, a body that was taller and stronger, a body that had just as much stamina but calluses on his palms and a bulkier torso.
He floated up in the air, just a bit, enough to turn upside down and look Peter in the eye. "Do you have a question for me today? Same rules apply."
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 05:19:41 UTC
"What have you been doing?" he decided on asking after pursing his lips and making such a face at Lan as to seem comical, though he was really just a bit irked to stare at his own face, upside down no less. How ridiculous, he thought mildly, but he was not as irritated as he would have liked to be. Hands in his pockets absently, he arched a brow, tilting his head at his own visage.
The answer to this could either end up aggravating him even more, or actually being interesting. There was the possibility of both too, but Peter would rather wait for the actual answer than make guesses at it out of the dark.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 05:23:20 UTC
Lan managed a laugh for that question. "Nothing horrifying, I assure you," he said, sighing just a little bit in that, one of Peter's sighs. "Practicing a technique that I didn't know very well. Perfecting things." He sits back up straight and settles on the sand again. "Nothing pornographic, nothing violent, nothing you would be ashamed to tell your mother." I promise.
It was the least he could do, after all. Keep Peter's body safe and secure, with full intention of returning it at the end of the ordeal. "Why, what have you been doing?"
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 05:29:34 UTC
At his answer, Peter scowled at first because of the laugh but then he just shook his head, rose off the sand without meaning to, peering at Lan until he came back down as well, sitting. Muting a sigh, he frowned instead, less severe than a scowl, but still disapproving.
"Nothing really," he said. Messing up, making mistakes, figuring myself out again, decorating hallways, and not cooking breakfast. Oh and singing lullabies with a greater efficiency but he was not about to mention that of all things. Though Lucy might giggle. "A bit of walking," he admitted, and he knew Lan would realize he did not mean on the ground.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 05:33:54 UTC
"You know," Lan begins, smiling just a little, "I really look much handsomer when I'm smiling. You should try it. It's kind of nice."
It's a lie the windwalker told the world, his smile. Lan loved to smile because people were more willing, less stubborn, more forgiving of mistakes. But the smile was a lie most of the time, a lie that Lan told without effort and without thought.
"Has it taken you anywhere special?" Lan had learned to windwalk when he was six years old, and he always thought it would take him somewhere special. "Did you resolve the fight with your friend?"
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 05:38:15 UTC
"No," he admitted, sighing at last. "And no," he shook his head to the last, frown deepening and if he had been in front of a mirror he would have known how clouded that look became, but as he stared only at the sand, this was not the case. Running fingers through the sand a bit idly, he glanced up at the sky eventually, a darkness about his features that he could not shake, despite location and fairness of the day.
"And I have not had much reason to smile lately but I will remember that," he replied belatedly to the first comment, tone as wry as anything with a roll of eyes that did not belong to him.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 05:41:18 UTC
No, no, no. Not the words that Lan wanted to hear. He wanted to hear yeses, a resounding chorus of them, words that meant that maybe Peter was adapting. The wind adapted. That's what it did.
Lan sighed and watched his own eyes for a minute, then kicked the sand. "You want to know how I died."
He knew that the other boy did. He could hear it in the way he breathed around him, in how death was jarring. It was natural, to be curious about it. Everyone was, everyone always was.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 05:56:53 UTC
"I won't force it out of you," he shrugged but it was true that he wanted to know, so he turned to face the wind walker, tilting his head slightly as if to say that he would listen if he chose to divulge. For once, Peter would simply wait for an answer or lack thereof, because lately, forcing things had not gone over that well for him, and it still felt odd to think about harming or even physically threatening his own body. It was rather unsettling in fact, because it was his own voice talking back at him, a separate entity, and yet a familiar one all at once.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 06:12:39 UTC
Lan stared for a long time, out at the water, and then down at the sand. It wasn't a traumatic story; Lan's death was painful but not horrifying, and it was a stupid series of accidents and a stupid doctor's edicts more than it was anything else.
It wasn't fair. Maybe that's why Lan had been so quick to move into Peter's body, and so quick to force someone else into his. He took a deep breath.
"When Ri and I were a month or two outside of fifteen, we got sick. It was spreading, in Seal Point; a really bad illness, but people got over it fast." He paused. Ri had been sick only three days, three days in that infernal sickroom. "We were in the same sickroom, and Ri got better, and I kept getting worse. The doctors told the healers to keep the slats to the windows closed, so...they got an earth mage to spell the wood shut."
He remembered the heat, the suffocating denseness of the air, the lack of it around him. It had been a nightmare, a week of a nightmare. "I kept getting worse. Ri said that the slats kept trying to buckle, but the spells held, and so the wood held too."
He had begged for more air, but he wasn't going to tell Peter that. Maybe that was his own secret shame. "I didn't get enough air. I died because I was sick, and I didn't get enough air."
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 06:22:35 UTC
Basically he suffocated? It wasn't as simple as that, Peter knew, but it certainly played a factoring role, and he had the passing thought that if he ever became a doctor he would not pass any such ridiculous orders along into action. Who ever heard of something like that, and surely they had had reports or charts or something that told them of Lan's affinity for the air. Wouldn't that make it obvious?
I'm sorry, he thought, but did not say it.
"And how do you feel now?" he asked, because how did it feel to be alive but not yourself?
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 06:28:11 UTC
He looked over. How did he feel? In a body that he had stolen, in a form that wasn't his, but with a heart that beat and blood that raced and skin that was warm, and supple, and perfect.
He felt alive.
Wasn't that enough?
Suddenly Lan felt sickened by the whole thing. Not just the theft, but the usage. It was too much for him. He was very quiet, and he put Peter's head between Peter's knees and sat there like that for a long while. "I feel alive."
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 06:37:19 UTC
It was a sudden change and Peter couldn't explain it, but someone else could, someone who knew Peter Pevensie, someone like his family or even Caspian if they were on better terms perhaps. Without thinking he moved toward the wind walker, maintaining some space, because it felt right, but it was almost like saying that the other person, in his body, was not alone. Was it enough to be alive? Peter would say no if he actually asked him, but as he didn't, the not English Englishman only tilted his head, wetting his lips before he spoke.
"If I was someone else, I'd tell you it's fine, to not worry, or something," he began. "I'm not though, and I'm still angry," he said because it was true. "But I would want to know what it was to be alive," he finished and then with a quick after thought, "Given the chance."
It was almost like Lan was a child to him suddenly and maybe that helped him somewhat in having his overriding frustration slightly dulled or muted by further understanding.
What do you think happens if you die here?
Peter counted himself fortunate to not know such a thing, physically, even if he died another way, that day in the public square.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 06:44:25 UTC
Lan stood; it wasn't a fast motion, or a practiced one, just a motion; just one smooth movement, assisted by the wind.
I died and I deserve my body. Give it back!
All the sane parts of him, the scolding and angry parts sounded like Ri. Ri would say that, Ri would have tried to force him to see reason. Ri wouldn't have let him just parade around, or try and fool anyone, or let him not see what he had done.
Ri would have forced him to admit every last mistake that he had made.
He missed his brother so much.
You promised you wouldn't leave me. Why did you leave me?
Lan wasn't sure who was speaking in his mind, if it was Ri, or himself; and he wasn't sure that it mattered.
"Do you really think," he began, but he couldn't finish the first thought, so he continued it with another, "that if I hadn't done this, that your problems wouldn't have happened the way they are?"
It wasn't accusatory, but curious. Salt spray landed on his face.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]oshutupJanuary 16 2009, 06:58:18 UTC
"No, I don't," he replied immediately. His brow furrowed as he stood as well, and it was all too odd staring at himself, and angrily no less, but it couldn't be helped. Hands in his pockets, he shook his head at Lan, not sure if he understood his meaning.
"Are you angry?" he asked when he found he had nothing else to say, but wondered at the way the wind picked up around them and the change in posture of the one who continued to occupy his form.
[ sorry but i've got to go, the birth was quick but the death is slow ]windmemoryJanuary 16 2009, 07:01:43 UTC
He felt the wind touch him, softly, and he shook his head. "I'm not angry," he said, and there was music behind those words. "I'm upset," he offered, amending it, "I'm lonely," he admitted, after another moment.
He was lonely. He had been lonely for a long time.
"This wasn't to hurt anyone," he finally explained. "It wasn't to make people mad or hurt or offended. It was..."
Lan stopped. "I love the wind," he finished. He wasn't being very sensical, but the wind never is. He spoke what he felt and that was it, that was the truth. There was no lie there. The wind snatched those words, like a balm, but he knew that Peter could hear them.
Still, the beach is one of Peter's favorite places in this strange, strange City, or rather, outside of its proper, and when he comes to rest on one of the numberless dunes, he glances to his right before spotting the only other person present. How simple it has become for him to travel on air, and yet how quickly he would relinquish it to feel whole again, and that is the true difference between someone who is something--like the wind, like Lan--and someone who is loyal to but separate from it--like Peter.
He loves the wind, the sky, the freedom. But this isn't who he is, who his family depends on, who the new king of Narnia trusts, who Peter himself knows. This isn't about a lack of a pulse but it is about the lack of a heart, and it's not the kind that will be found in anatomy books.
Lucy, Edmund, Susan, Caspian, they could all tell anyone else.
For Peter, the heart is in his mouth, in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders, in the mantle he fell into and picked up years ago when stepping through a wardrobe. He hasn't lost himself because this is still him, in many senses, in this body that is not his, but he is not complete and no puzzle piece was ever made to fit more than two shapes.
"I don't suppose you're satisfied yet," the would-be-blond says, not loudly and not quietly, not angrily, and not happily. It is a way to begin a conversation, and it is a point of import, and it is something he wonders, because he doesn't know Lan, and it is always worth asking.
Reply
Lan missed his world, but he missed being alive more.
"You found me," he said with a soft humor in his voice. "That's a good start." He looks up from where she's sitting and the wind moves around him.
No, he wasn't satisfied. It wasn't about fun, or cheating anyone out of their life. It was about...
Lan wasn't altogether sure. Some of it was life, and some of it was love, and some of it was just the novelty of it. Maybe that made him a bad person, but if Lan were to be honest (and sometimes, he is) he would admit that part of it was the novelty of a new body, a body that was taller and stronger, a body that had just as much stamina but calluses on his palms and a bulkier torso.
He floated up in the air, just a bit, enough to turn upside down and look Peter in the eye. "Do you have a question for me today? Same rules apply."
Reply
The answer to this could either end up aggravating him even more, or actually being interesting. There was the possibility of both too, but Peter would rather wait for the actual answer than make guesses at it out of the dark.
Reply
It was the least he could do, after all. Keep Peter's body safe and secure, with full intention of returning it at the end of the ordeal. "Why, what have you been doing?"
Reply
"Nothing really," he said. Messing up, making mistakes, figuring myself out again, decorating hallways, and not cooking breakfast. Oh and singing lullabies with a greater efficiency but he was not about to mention that of all things. Though Lucy might giggle. "A bit of walking," he admitted, and he knew Lan would realize he did not mean on the ground.
Reply
It's a lie the windwalker told the world, his smile. Lan loved to smile because people were more willing, less stubborn, more forgiving of mistakes. But the smile was a lie most of the time, a lie that Lan told without effort and without thought.
"Has it taken you anywhere special?" Lan had learned to windwalk when he was six years old, and he always thought it would take him somewhere special. "Did you resolve the fight with your friend?"
Reply
"And I have not had much reason to smile lately but I will remember that," he replied belatedly to the first comment, tone as wry as anything with a roll of eyes that did not belong to him.
Reply
Lan sighed and watched his own eyes for a minute, then kicked the sand. "You want to know how I died."
He knew that the other boy did. He could hear it in the way he breathed around him, in how death was jarring. It was natural, to be curious about it. Everyone was, everyone always was.
Reply
Reply
It wasn't fair. Maybe that's why Lan had been so quick to move into Peter's body, and so quick to force someone else into his. He took a deep breath.
"When Ri and I were a month or two outside of fifteen, we got sick. It was spreading, in Seal Point; a really bad illness, but people got over it fast." He paused. Ri had been sick only three days, three days in that infernal sickroom. "We were in the same sickroom, and Ri got better, and I kept getting worse. The doctors told the healers to keep the slats to the windows closed, so...they got an earth mage to spell the wood shut."
He remembered the heat, the suffocating denseness of the air, the lack of it around him. It had been a nightmare, a week of a nightmare. "I kept getting worse. Ri said that the slats kept trying to buckle, but the spells held, and so the wood held too."
He had begged for more air, but he wasn't going to tell Peter that. Maybe that was his own secret shame. "I didn't get enough air. I died because I was sick, and I didn't get enough air."
Reply
I'm sorry, he thought, but did not say it.
"And how do you feel now?" he asked, because how did it feel to be alive but not yourself?
Reply
He felt alive.
Wasn't that enough?
Suddenly Lan felt sickened by the whole thing. Not just the theft, but the usage. It was too much for him. He was very quiet, and he put Peter's head between Peter's knees and sat there like that for a long while. "I feel alive."
Why wasn't that enough?
Reply
"If I was someone else, I'd tell you it's fine, to not worry, or something," he began. "I'm not though, and I'm still angry," he said because it was true. "But I would want to know what it was to be alive," he finished and then with a quick after thought, "Given the chance."
It was almost like Lan was a child to him suddenly and maybe that helped him somewhat in having his overriding frustration slightly dulled or muted by further understanding.
What do you think happens if you die here?
Peter counted himself fortunate to not know such a thing, physically, even if he died another way, that day in the public square.
Reply
I died and I deserve my body. Give it back!
All the sane parts of him, the scolding and angry parts sounded like Ri. Ri would say that, Ri would have tried to force him to see reason. Ri wouldn't have let him just parade around, or try and fool anyone, or let him not see what he had done.
Ri would have forced him to admit every last mistake that he had made.
He missed his brother so much.
You promised you wouldn't leave me. Why did you leave me?
Lan wasn't sure who was speaking in his mind, if it was Ri, or himself; and he wasn't sure that it mattered.
"Do you really think," he began, but he couldn't finish the first thought, so he continued it with another, "that if I hadn't done this, that your problems wouldn't have happened the way they are?"
It wasn't accusatory, but curious. Salt spray landed on his face.
Reply
"Are you angry?" he asked when he found he had nothing else to say, but wondered at the way the wind picked up around them and the change in posture of the one who continued to occupy his form.
Reply
He was lonely. He had been lonely for a long time.
"This wasn't to hurt anyone," he finally explained. "It wasn't to make people mad or hurt or offended. It was..."
Lan stopped. "I love the wind," he finished. He wasn't being very sensical, but the wind never is. He spoke what he felt and that was it, that was the truth. There was no lie there. The wind snatched those words, like a balm, but he knew that Peter could hear them.
Reply
Leave a comment