(no subject)
He does not take part in the conversations around the fires at night as a general rule. When asked for his opinion, he will offer it; when asked for a tale, he'll dredge one from his childhood, always about someone else.
When the talk turns to governance, Roland stays silent.
Eventually they begin to treat him as something between an avatar and a mascot, not quite the subject of veneration, not quite treated with beloved condescension. They show him respect; they leave him to travel drogue, to outpace their flank and scout ahead.
***
The City of Lud is silent, when they get there. No drums. No Pubes, no Grays.
The old folk of River Crossing are all dead. That is one thing that Roland takes the time to check, and he does so alone.
He kneels in the dirt one more time, wondering if he'll ever have the need for benediction again. Like the folk he travels with, he's not quite sure what he is.
***
He feels the tug of sadness, every so often. It was better the first time, when he saw it all with much fresher eyes, with a smaller group. It is very well that the folk from the roses do not depend on him, especially considering what he believes he's planning.
All the same --
Considering what came after, he can see those days with his tet, Eddie and Susannah and Jake and Oy, painted in the same hazy, warm light as his foundational memory of the lovely girl at the window. He misses the quiet; he misses the respite.
For that's what it was: they'd known they were in the Path of the Beam, and all they needed to do for a time was walk southeast and try not to die. He'd taken that time to train, to coach, to coax and cajole. And they'd done the same for him. They'd made him less
( break the machine, clean the )
machine, and more man. More gunslinger, with all the old weight the word held.
The desert did a number on him, he knows, and the desert is still ahead.
***
In the end, the desert is anticlimactic. It's dry, of course.
But there are way-stations along the wagon-grooves, and here no pumps are dry.
They travel by night, and they talk at dawn of governance before they sleep and dream of Gilead, and he sees how their eyes shift to him, searching for guidance, for approval, and Roland Deschain, descended from kings and accustomed to ruling himself, says nothing.
When the talk turns to governance, Roland stays silent.
Eventually they begin to treat him as something between an avatar and a mascot, not quite the subject of veneration, not quite treated with beloved condescension. They show him respect; they leave him to travel drogue, to outpace their flank and scout ahead.
***
The City of Lud is silent, when they get there. No drums. No Pubes, no Grays.
The old folk of River Crossing are all dead. That is one thing that Roland takes the time to check, and he does so alone.
He kneels in the dirt one more time, wondering if he'll ever have the need for benediction again. Like the folk he travels with, he's not quite sure what he is.
***
He feels the tug of sadness, every so often. It was better the first time, when he saw it all with much fresher eyes, with a smaller group. It is very well that the folk from the roses do not depend on him, especially considering what he believes he's planning.
All the same --
Considering what came after, he can see those days with his tet, Eddie and Susannah and Jake and Oy, painted in the same hazy, warm light as his foundational memory of the lovely girl at the window. He misses the quiet; he misses the respite.
For that's what it was: they'd known they were in the Path of the Beam, and all they needed to do for a time was walk southeast and try not to die. He'd taken that time to train, to coach, to coax and cajole. And they'd done the same for him. They'd made him less
( break the machine, clean the )
machine, and more man. More gunslinger, with all the old weight the word held.
The desert did a number on him, he knows, and the desert is still ahead.
***
In the end, the desert is anticlimactic. It's dry, of course.
But there are way-stations along the wagon-grooves, and here no pumps are dry.
They travel by night, and they talk at dawn of governance before they sleep and dream of Gilead, and he sees how their eyes shift to him, searching for guidance, for approval, and Roland Deschain, descended from kings and accustomed to ruling himself, says nothing.