First and Second

I wish I hadn't looked now, which is the best I've got to tell you.

I didn't want to see the tired set of your hips or the tight swell of your swallows or the careful dig of your palm under your eyes. I know that's not the proper script in times like these, I should have something abstract and sympathetic, but all I want to tell you is I wish I didn't have to stand here and look at you half considering scenarios that could get you in that grave with him.

We're supposed to be ready for this, right?

Was Rayleigh, really?

He must have looked like you do, and won't I, don't I have to?

That's what you're telling me, standing there so calmly with the presence of mind to tell him thanks and send him back to me, they all die first because that's why we love them.

And wouldn't he be a wreck if his coat was still on his back and yours was on the stake?

It's sick but it comes with the job, why have a vice-captain but for taking on the captaincy when the man himself is unable? And it's just unhappy coincidence that we get the position because we're most willing to die for them, since they never let us. Part of the job, but I didn't want to see it. In the wandering stare into the sun, the clinging cross of your arms over your empty chest. In the shrug of your soul when our eyes meet for a second. He was old. No better place, no better time. No better cause. No one expects you to have the white beard. He didn't have to take the king's throne. I won't need red hair, it's not even black anymore.

I'm not sure what I thought I'd see - or what I wish I had - maybe tears. Clenched fists. Naively perhaps, a bittersweet smile. But all you are is lonely there, on top of sixteen hundred, telling me it simply will happen, I won't be ready, and that you're so sorry.

If I hadn't looked, I could have kept thinking about the captains, I could have given my condolences, like I'm supposed to. Now I'm not thinking about your brother. I'm not thinking about your father.

I'm looking at his empty arm and thinking about us and why I had to look at you.