IX: Walk

"Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"

"Yes."

"All like ours?"

"I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound-a few blighted."

"Which do we live on-a splendid one or a blighted one?"

"A blighted one."

- Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles

It got worse.

It was not a sickness. That would imply that it would go away, fade with time, not dwindle, not peter out, not worsen, not twist and deform into misshapen, broken forms, like drooling candlewax, shivering in the dark. In the cold. (Her skin was so very cold; its' brief touch made his crawl. How had he not noticed that before?)

She had become a shadow. A silent moth, drawn to a far-off, distant flame, galaxies away. Stuck here. Staring stupid at the stars.

She would eat, of course – she always ate when he offered. But she did not talk to him – not to him. Sometimes at him, though, sometimes mutterings about autumn leaves lost in season, or an occasional question about the state of the weather and political affairs – airily voiced, not at anyone in particular. She did not look at him. She only answered his questions when probed. They slept in the same bed, as they had before, but they did not touch.

Well, that wasn't strictly true. They still fucked now and again.

There was something nostalgic about it – the desperate clinging, the repetitive pounding, the painful thrum of again and again and again and again and again. It reminded him of those first desperate, nauseating encounters when he first touched her quivering body (and he too – he was shaking then) – except... not. Because this time, it was only he who was clutching her, grabbing at her cool, pale, deathly flesh, smelling of sweet earth and broken gravestones and roaring wind, pulling nights thousands of miles away to his nostrils.

She didn't belong to this world anymore.

If he was unsure of whether she was mad before, he was certain now. The strange, hypnotic girl in the scarlet dress, ragged hair aflutter past her ears, a lost song pressed on her lips, mumbling, sometimes incomprehensibly, and smiling, sometimes incomprehensibly, smiling about something that wasn't him.

He felt ashamed every single time he wanted to crush that smile off her lips. Because he did. Because he wanted to crush her.

It was the sort of thing Morzan might have thought of.

Murtagh, in reality, was completely aware of his slow transition to a weak-willed, helpless, desperate, abusive, paranoid, misogynistic monster. About damn time, said the fates.

He left glasses out out, pining liquor still fresh inside bottle-necks, and goblets upturned on mantelpieces, cupboards, rolling sideways along tables. Tables she used, tables she clumsily placed her feet on, tables she would write long, sighing letters to no one on in dried ink, before she ripped the paper to pieces. He would return home drunk – rip-roaring, aggressively drunk, absolutely hammered, stupidly drunk – because god, his survival was the last damn thing he cared about any more. Not since Thorn stopped talking to him.

(Thorn stopped talking to him, did he mention that? No, he didn't. Because he had. He'd stopped talking to Murtagh. He had shut up and Murtagh hadn't even noticed. He had stopped talking to him weeks ago, months, even. And Murtagh didn't even know if he cared any more. God, the stars were laughing at him – wheezy guffaws, sniggers at the back, bowling over with bouncing, blubbering laughter – oh god, it was all so stupid.)

Of course, she didn't pay the slightest note of attention. She didn't even care when he was drunk in her face. There was no fierce, outspoken argument. There was no rage. There was no accusation – no screaming – no 'Stop-trying-to-pretend-you're-your-father-when-you're-clearly-nothing-like-him' 'You-never-knew-my-father-how-can-you-judge' 'You're-trying-to-be-what-he-was-supposed-to-be-like:-a-dick. So-stop-it'. There were no niggling remarks, irritated sighs, disgust – as before.

(As before! As before! As bloody better before!)

She didn't care, probably. She was probably too insane to know what caring was. She was certainly too insane to know what living was. Too broken. Too strange. Too alien. Too... too elfin.

He should hate her. That was the funny thing: he didn't. He should have – perhaps he might have, if he were a few years older, and 'wiser', he might have brushed her calmly aside, her, the lunatic, little more than a tame animal, and realised that she didn't have any feelings anymore, that she wasn't human anymore (she was never human, never, never human to start with -)

But he couldn't.

His rationale told him that he cared too much. That was his 'weakness'. That was his 'pathetic excuse'. That was 'why he was here' in the first place. That was something that he could never change.

(Could he?)

But it wasn't as laughably simple as that. Because he already had changed.

The nights were the worst.

In the nights, she would disappear. Slink away into the shade. And he would be left, aching, in the sweltering heat, burning alive. Murtagh had never adapted to the dry, dense Augusts in Uru'baen. They were sticky, irritable things. Stifling.

Sometimes he would awake, suddenly, chased by a hurtling dream, only to sit up, naked, dripping in his own sweat, shivering – a little. He would toss the flimsy sheets aside to find nothing beside him. There was nobody else there. Just a few wrinkles. Where she had lied. It always took a few long, painful moments to realise that she'd gone.

He tried to do something about it.

He would stay up, glaring from a rigid armchair perched in the corner, watching her, the muscles in her neck, her chest, tense and release as her breath tickled her throat. He'd blink. And she'd go. He never saw her leave, never saw her disappear – she just went. No puff of smoke. No magic flashing. Nothing.

Sometimes he wondered if he'd fabricated it all. Sometimes he'd wonder if she was ever there at all.

"Aodhan?" asked Lionel.

"Ye'?"

Lionel frowned. Aodhan had dropped his rag-tag western isle accent long before the two men had met, yet he still insisted on throwing the odd anachronism into his perfectly sound speech. It was too casual, too lackadaisical for his taste. A tad deliberate, perhaps. Lionel was in no urgency to complain, however – far more pressing matters were at hand. A storm was brewing far on the horizon. One could see it in the clouds above, thick and jagged, curly coals. Workmen were dashing about, heavy sails in their hands, attempting to prepare for the battering winds beyond. The old Captain, a snarling caricature of a greying, weathered seaman as there ever was, was throwing coarse orders over the swooping tides.

"We should head under deck, Aodhan. It's unwise to linger – even if the storm turns out to be little more than a pattering of rain."

Aodhan did not answer. He was without his thick, tailored travelling coat, his sleeves rolled up, letting the water hiss and spit against his naked forearms. In the past weeks, his hair had grown unruly, his complexion dour. Half-mad, wondered Lionel, as usual; he had known Aodhan too long to think much of it, aside from casual concern.

"Aodhan – "

"I'm beginning to wonder why I'm here," Aodhan cut in. "I'm beginning to wonder why on earth we came here at all –"

A wave shot upwards, crashing against the side of the ship.

"You have impeccable timing as usual."

"I don't care what you think, Lionel, I never did much. Better said before we're dead. I just – god – I–"

Lionel took the arm of his friend, before he could be needlessly dramatic, and pulled him beneath the deck. The other passengers – few there were, so few dared to take this route – huddled in the shade. They sat in silence. A few soft groans could be heard; a few spare mutters were passed across.

An hour passed beneath the swaying deck, before Aodhan tried to elaborate.

"I'm still thinking about The Pirate Lord."

"When are you not?"

"But – "

"But?"

"But," stressed Aodhan. "I'm thinking of the faerie more."

The faerie. The slightly, flighty, little elfin creature, winged and wicked. The creature that Aodhan had seen ten years before, that had started this daft, hopeless quest – to kill Murtagh, the Pirate Lord! To take his treasure, to take his hoard! To free the faerie kingdom once and for all! – the creature that Lionel later saw with his own eyes. That poor, pathetic, snivelling creature... god, it was a travesty, what the pirates had done. Even thinking about it – thinking about it made it certain this insanity was truly right.

"Is this going to help her?" Aodhan asked.

"Sorry – what?"

"This... quest, of ours. Is it really going to benefit her, directly? Is it – "

"You're having doubts now – so close to the goal?" asked Lionel, incredulously.

"Well–"

"You're positively absurd."

A silence.

"I refuse to kill in vain. I refuse to hurt what doesn't need to be hurt. The faeries would have been massacred irregardless of the pirates existence, wouldn't have they?"

"I can't honestly believe you're actually saying this."

"I can't believe myself either, Lionel. It's all so very ridiculous, isn't it?"

The passage cut out suddenly. A large annotation was written beneath this in a flowing scribble-script.

Cut from the original edition; considered too adult and too complex in terms of theme and language. Inserted as appendix in short-lived second edition. Copies burnt afterwards. Last remaining record (?) likely of section.

It wasn't Murtagh's handwriting.

One day he came with his collar soaked in five-year old whiskey; he stabbed the door open, trawled through the floor, his hair swept up in black, sweat-soaked tangles, his jerkin half-undone – only by halves – his fingernails smudged with red lines; his boots were torn off with a terrific shriek, clock hands shaking as they tick-tick-tick-ticked and a drowsy hour hand swung around – sun was too bright it was too goddamned early and he hadn't had enough goddamned sleep to be able tell times apart – goddamned motherfucking bloody shitty motherfucking – and then he stumbled into the pricey corner of a table; it fucking fucking fucking hurt.

Arya watched this spectacle without watching at all.

"Bitch."

The elf did not move. Her richly painted marble-glossed eyes did not even blink.

"You're not even going to say anything. Bitch."

He staggered towards her, his face contorted into pain.

Slap.

He whacked her clean across the face. Hard. Fast. Some blood spilt – splattered the wall, teardrops of fine wine.

"Say something!"

Slap.

She fell to the floor. No tears wasted.

"Damn it!" he screamed. "Damn it!"

She didn't fight back. She didn't even move. She didn't even care, he bet, he always won his bets – was she laughing? Or was she crying out storms of misery? Was she letting out cold, metallic, hard pearls of laughter? At him? Was he a joke? He was a joke – A huge, laudable – oh god he had just hit her he had just hit her he had just hit her he had just hit her he had just

He had just hit her.

I'm not my father I'm not my father please believe me I'm not actually my father I'm just playing dress up don't you like dress up I can play dress up I'm good at it pretending because nothing is real really don't you think why be existential when you can pretend but really I'm not my father I would say I'm actually me I don't know what I am I don't know I don't know I don't

He had just hit her.

She wasn't moving.

"Say something!" he roared.

The joke was on him.

"Say something! Please!"

Ha. Ha, Ha.

Is this what love feels like? (He might have wistfully pondered, half-amusedly, maybe as a snarky quip at the concept of such thing as 'irrational feelings' – if he was sober.)

Her shoulders crumpled as his hand – tentative – reached at her. She didn't want to be pulled up. (She would do so in her own time) Not by him. The monster, he might have said, jokingly. Ha. Ha, Ha. Ha Ha, Ha. Wasn't it amusing?

Wasn't it?

"Malena–"

"Yes?" she responded stiffly.

Upwards, along the fingerless banister, gold-leaved footsteps and tricklings of wine, a floating piece of autumn, bushes thick with cold berries and dusty leaves, danced in the sky. A red-bricked wishing well was perched on this little island, a heart – bottomless; it stretched to the centre of the earth – swollen with creamy liquid, the residue of fallen stars, in which skylit dreams could be seen. It was one of many places – empty balconies, twisting palaces, flat pancake lakes, tin-roofed sheds under the earth, cottages in forgotten woods, all tinged with the colours of falling leaves – that they, her and her actor, gold-masked and grinning, had created together.

"There's – there's something on your cheek. Look here."

He snapped his fingers, and a jet of the well's magical milk jumped upwards, and spread out into a shimmering mirror across the well.

"Can you see it?" he asked, smiling.

There was something – awkward – bashful – about his tone tonight. It was 'in character', she assumed, with the gold-clasped scarlet uniform of a soldier – a farcical costume she'd seen before – and whilst the relentless, burgeoning eccentricity of his constant winks, blinks, and dancing hands (he could live his life headless with those fluttering hands; they spoke for him) was still there... it was more subdued. Calmer, perhaps.

"No," she said, softly. "I can't."

"I don't believe you."

He was right to. In the enchanted mirror, cast upon the air, lay the beguiling reflection of a poised maiden... an elfin princess. She turned her head. An angry, red gash had struck her across the left cheek, and little black markings that seemed to spin around it, far too familiar... she looked down at the back of her left hand. No. Nothing. Why had she looked at it, again?

"Where did you get it?" the actor asked. He sounded... concerned.

She frowned.

"I... I don't know. I don't honestly know. I can't recall, ever... it's almost as if it appeared by–"

"Magic." The actor said, laughing heartily, now. "How feeble."

He tired of it eventually. So he flew.

On the back of a vast, silent beast, he winged the spilling horizon, fresh with thick meadows ripe and coloured; rolling across rosy apple orchards, sun-drenched wheat fields spun of gold, wandering footpaths criss-crossing themselves; a nervous, tingling stream; across winding country lanes that meandered to thatched villages and quaint markets under red-and-white-striped stalls and the mellow hum of a ringing bell along winding avenues and squealing children pointing to the sky – look. Tousled hair sheared short, in bunches, bobbing up and down, low-lying puffs of breakaway cloud, bleating, in stiff skirts flayed outwards and holed tunics, with buckets and spades and forks, bleating, with gnarled sticks and stones and hearts bones, bleating; – look.

Because look – not touch. Because see – not have. Because pretend – not be. Simple as simple is. Kid logic. Simple. And undeniably oxymoronic.

He flew away – he wafted on a circumstantial breeze, away from delicately-painted pastorals, smooth-rugged edges, away from roaming plains, away heavy forests, shading with the falling sky, away from the caws of blackbirds and crows of bleeding animals. He flew above shallow, noiseless lakes, that shone like magic mirrors. The wind shook with cold; mist began to simmer across the plains. The crags and claws-tips of mountains pierced the distance – of what little could be seen through the blackening fog. The sun collided into the horizon, cracking into rivulets of violent purple, bloodshot red.

And in the midst of wisps of hot charcoal, there between the fragments, were a thousand thousand burning stars. Gleaming.

Murtagh slammed into the horizon.

"I just heard–"

A clatter of noise could be heard outside the thin canopy. Low-key chatter, a crackling fire, shivers in the cold – nothing particularly indicative, or exciting, for that matter. No vast, rumbling crowds. No sword swiping, no duels, swinging about in the corner, steel glittering in the midday sun. No wild fanfares, draped in coloured flags. It was the lack of noise – the weary sighs withheld. The outcries stripped down to disgruntled mumbling. That was the telling thing.

"I just heard – Milady?"

The tired words rose up into a question mark. Nasuada glanced up from her lace-sleeved fingernails, rusting with blood, and spied her attention on the worn, lifeless face of the man kneeling in the dirt in front of her.

"No need for such antagonism, Stronghammer."

A bare-faced lie.

Roran winced. No one had called him that in months. The name made him slightly sick at the back of his throat. She knew it did – it was why she said it – that was his lady.

"I wasn't–"

He caught the sentence before it could be slewed out through gritted teeth.

"Good."

A hoarse silence. Nasuada slumped back into the chair. The heavy-backed, makeshift oakwood throne, gilded with rich detail – why had she brought it? It was such a cumbersome, such a irksome thing to drag around, pile into a cart and shunt it about several thousand miles of sun-burnt wilderness, before – carefully – unpacking it again. Just for her haughty little ass. Well, she thought – one had to be impractical now and again, didn't one? Life was so tiresome without its guilty pleasures. So very tiresome.

Her army was being submerged by an avalanche of roaring blood, her best commanders had their throats ripped out, their corpses tied on the back of mad horses, half her infantry units wiped out with a plume of a dragon's flame, her advancement was now in negative and they were ten miles off being ambushed, caught, and surrounded at a dreary little port on the western coastline.

She was honestly fed up. Half-mad, too – but one didn't mention that in public. No – no – that would be impossible.

Roran too. It had been three months, but looked closer to thirteen years. His features were now dragged down – like hers – with pained exhaustion. Black Rings. Stone Skin. Broken wrinkles. A stern frown. Not since his wife had died. Not since his village had died.

She did wonder why he hadn't thrown himself off a cliff yet.

(Actually, she knew exactly why. It was the same reason she hadn't.)

"Milady," he said, forcefully.

"Ah, you need something? Well, I'm a very busy woman, don't prattle with me."

The last sentence was a bare-faced bare-backed bare-assed lie.

"Milady, I've caught wind of the rumours–"

"You should pay no heed to rumours, Stronghammer–"

"Rumours of your imminent departure. Rumours of your surrender–"

It's not surrender. It's not surrender. I'm still going to die.

"Roran, your cousin is gone," Nasuada assured. "He went months ago. You hold no authority over what I do–"

"How could you? How could – "

"Excuse me?"

I'm still going to die.

"– how could you abandon something that you've spent every single waking moment working for, drilling for, pushing for, and pushed others into it for, something which you've inspired people with –"

I'm going to be submerged into the darkness the void the hole the abyss and I'm never coming back I'm never coming back you'll never touch me again never hear me never want never

"Roran–"

"How could you leave it all behind? How could you – "

How can I?

"Roran–"

Because I'm afraid of being shot.

"This is all we ever dreamed of, all we ever hoped of, all we ever wanted – war war war and more war – and you're sick of it? And you're sick of it already? Already? You find it disgusting? Find us disgusting – we're too much for you, us commoner soldiers, us farm folk with our flaming pitchforks, milady? Distressing, maybe? Oh dear. Too much? Too much for milady – please–"

She gripped his shoulder. One of them was shaking. Maybe both of them.

"I think that's enough speculation over rumour, Stronghammer."

"Well, I don't. Milday–"

Nasuada glared. He glared back. He was twice her size; with a squashed fist, he could easily clutch her neck, and with his little finger, meticulously, rip it off its base –

But he didn't.

Shaking his head, he turned around and left. She turned back to her desk. God – she could kill for a glass of dry red right now. Shame she hadn't had any in months.

"I'm going to die," she murmured aloud, chuckling quietly. She pulled her, thin, needle-like fingers, black and coarse, through her mad curls, before they tugged at the strain of pearls looped around her neck. I'm going to die.

She tossed them to the floor, and screamed as they smashed.

Screamed.
Screamed.

No one paid any notice.

The forked branches rose above, spiking into silver-veined leaves, which whistled at the breeze's bells, at the crying rain. Crumpled roots snagged the floor; bark-bitten, and clumps of melted moss. Fireflies danced across sticky ponds; dotting up and down, low buzzing; the shade weaved in and out of the clearings, drawing frosted spider-webs for them. Marked on a map, a few dotted 'x's and 'whys?' huddled in the North at this spot, this slight blemish; on foot, those paper sheaves seemed limp and lifeless, and would slip dreamlessly from the sick fingers of a wandering soul.

And above, the stars were gleaming.

Nothing followed Murtagh; nothing. Not even a shadow. For with such a dire, wretched face, contorted with the complexities of a lost love, of a won war, and an empty existence, who would need a shadow?

And all above, those starry-eyed lights would gleam madly.

"God damn you!"

In a trampled shirt, loose, rolled up to the arms, and hair long and tangled and wild, walked a boy in the shape of a man.

"I don't get it – I just don't–"

He traipsed through the churchyard yews and edelweiss, uprooted onto these lonely plains. Trailing, was the smell of burning smoke and liquor ghosts and naked feet running in the mud.

Under those glitzy stars, fixed and hot and burning, he walked to nowhere. In his right hand, his bible, his Qur'an – the ruffled copy of The Pirate Lord. In his left hand, a gem, a family heirloom, a magical artefact, that seemed to glint psychotically in amongst those And retching at the back of his throat, measly words, a desperate prayer:-

Star light, star bright,

The first star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might,

Have the wish I wish tonight.

It was something his father had once told him.

"I wish..."

Maybe. Perhaps.

He couldn't remember.

"I wish..."

The stars did nothing.

He screamed. He threw everything to the floor. He threw his head in his hands and his hands to the ground. And knelt.

What was the point – "What is the point?" – of wishes when the faerie tales always ended unhappily? What was the point of fate when it was only ever tragic? What was the point of being given power if it was only ever used for ill? Because magic – because fate – when had that ever done anything? When had that ever been good? When had that ever - oh god, the question was so naive - made him, well, happy?

"I didn't deserve this."

He was a monster. He was an animal. He was his father.

"I know – I know – I know!"

'Fate' was decided for him. Fate was writ not in the gleaming stars, those mocking fairy-lights – but in blood. Inheritance was his 'fate'. He looked like his father, he sounded like his father, he acted like his father. So why bother? So why bother at all, attempting to be something different? Because when it came down to it, he always knew, he knew that he would spend the next decade, next century, next millennia as an elaborate puppet, fighting off elaborate and staged rebellions in turn, drinking elaborately, smoking elaborately, theatrically fucking several different men and women in the endless escape of a grandiloquent, a pretentiously-trimmed lifestyle lacking in life, and the crippling emptiness that seemed to permeate through every single waking second: - my life is pointless, my life is incomplete, my life is lacking.

And little would change. Because – because – he had tried to change – he had tried to rebel – he had tried to run – he had tried to fight – he had tried to love – he had tried to even work on the inside, mobilise troops, organise frontiers, change tactics, move the war forwards – and it had worked – it was working – he was winning the war – and he would use that to solidify his political power and acquire influence – he was going to change conditions, as soon as it was over, reform the court, the acquittal system, standardise laws and the federal state and localised guilds, tax progressively, subsidise capital and encourage innovation, increase literacy through education sponsorship – he had power, and he was going to use it – he was going to use it for good –

But these dreams never seemed to materialise. Each time, and every time, he reached for the nib of his quill, for a bottle of ink, for a slab of parchment, to decree the beginning of his plans, his measures, his bourgeoning ideas, the fruition of a lifetime's philosophy reading stirred into ripening fruits, summer's hefty bounty, ready to be picked, washed, sliced, diced, fried, and served into one – just one – one, simple, cohesive, thorough, fully-formed document –

And his quill would slip from his hand. Dead books never made sprawling forests.

And it all just seemed so desolate and he couldn't understand why.

It all just seemed so pointless and meaningless and numb and empty like a broken chasm that would well up inside repeatedly and repeatedly and however much he covered it with other people's barely witty quips and other people's insightful remarks and hefty reading lists and unwelcoming glares and pretending he was a ruthless and jaded and actually being ruthless and jaded and everything that being an adult supposedly entailed. The chasm wouldn't go away it'd keep ripping him into pieces and everything into pieces and nothing seemed to be of value anymore nothing ever seemed to be of value he wished he could turn back the clock –

And then Arya came back. And then he was too concerned with her ever to care again.

Cycles would come and go, the wind would rise and fall, and their names, mere oscillations, mother, mentor, brother, lover, softly spoken whispers, that lingered not for more than a second; really, those dreams of love, of life, of purpose – really, they did not exist at all. And where did that leave him?

Sick and lonely.

Murtagh then remembered the exact reason why he was roaming across the wilderness. He wanted to kill himself. He wanted to crush himself repeatedly and burn himself twice over. God knows he deserved it.

But destiny called. And as with his every dream, it would remain forever incomplete. There was no point resisting the Cycle of Inheritance.

"Why am I crying?"

Maybe he was mourning something. It wouldn't be the first time.

A/N: I'm currently pre-occupied with exams and picking universities. That, and exploring funk, funk-rock, jazz-funk, and funk-metal. Hence slowing rate of writing. I have the next chapter half-written up. To be honest, I'm being plagued by a second idea - an original novel idea - which is really hampering my progress.

It's a depressing chapter, but I never promised a happy story.

What else? I read American Pyscho yesterday. Devoured it in two days. Favourite book ever, officially. It's so cleverly written - although brutal, so don't read on a full stomach. And I finally got round to reading Anthony Kiedis' autobiography. Also read it in two days. How the fuck someone can take in that much heroin and still be alive I have no fucking idea. But I can't ever listen to Gang of Four seriously again after the scenes with Andy Gill XD. Currently, with music, listening to a lot of late-era Miles Davis. Tribute to Jack Johnson is an excellent album that I can't recommend enough.