![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmMmmm, character death fic. I compose these a lot in my head and rarely write them. But here's one for Swordspoint.
http://community.livejournal.com/_riverside/12050.html
TITLE: The Death of the Swordsman
Pairing: Richard/Alec
Rating: PG
Warnings: Do I really have to warn for character death with a title like that? Character death.
Notes: I am still waiting for Fall of the Kings to show up from Amazon, so if this contradicts something in there, my apologies, just go with it as an AU.
Disclaimer: These lovely characters and their world belong, of course, to Ellen Kushner
When Richard is dying he realizes that some part of Alec has always thought of the Hill as home, even as they are now so very far away from their city. Even if his heart doesn’t feel it, even if his intellect rejects it, the motes of being that make up Alec know where he is from and to where he will return. Richard’s body, though able to see such impulses in others, seems to possess no similar imperatives for itself.
He has come too far in his life from the boy he once was to wish to be buried by the apple trees of the orchard alongside which his mother lived, just as he has come too far from the story he and Alec once were to want to be in a grubby grave strewn with too many flowers at the edge of Riverside. Besides, Alec is fragile enough; asking the man to escort his body across the sea when he goes home, and Alec will choose to go home, is probably unwise.
Alec seems to handle the business of Richard’s dying well, perhaps because it is slow and therefore romantic. Romance is drama, and Alec has certainly always understood that. Or, perhaps, because it is slow it is an object of study. Either way, Richard is grateful and proud of him, especially when the swordsman says he needs to write to Katherine and Alec fetches him a secretary instead of doing it himself.
“Alec,” he says, when his friend returns, when the secretary is gone. “Come sit.”
Alec is obedient, and Richard, hearing his motion across the room, feeling the grace with which he sits, thinks it very beautiful. The man had rarely allowed himself that softness when they were both young. It is a shame, in a way, Richard feels, but rare things sparkle more finely, and in Alec’s presence it has often been, often enough anyway, as if he can still see.
Richard fishes for his hand, smiles as his fingers brush over the rings – he can still name how each was won and how each was given.
“I want you to see that I’m burned,” Richard says, thinking it best without preamble, less room in which Alec can become hysterical.
“Why?” he sounds aghast.
Richard smiles, laughs softly. “Because you’re going home, and I don’t want to be left here, and escorting my body seems like too much of a burden to place on you. Besides, I trust the boat that little.”
He laughs, but then his fingers grip Richard’s far too hard and he winces, but Alec either doesn’t notice or care. “How am I supposed to bear the crossing without you?” The anguish in it frightens Richard.
“You could pretend I’m down in the cabin vomiting,” Richard offers unhelpfully.
Alec shakes his head, and then adds with wretchedly false bravado, “And abscond with a sailor so I don’t have to nurse you.”
“Something like that, and then you can come back to our room, and tell me all about it.”
“Will you listen?” Alec asks, as the tinge of expected hysteria becomes obvious in his voice.
“To every word.”
Alec smiles, tries to be brave, but he’s never been brave and Richard can’t see it anyway, and so he lies down, his head on Richard’s shoulder.
“How much longer do you think?”
“A few weeks, not more.” Then, after a long pause, “I still have some life left in me, for you, anyway, what shall we do?”
“Stay in bed,” Alec says softly, and Richard hums, if only at the idea of it.
When Alec returns to the city, clutching a case containing the jar that holds Richard’s ashes, the first thing he does is see his niece.
“Here. It’s from him,” he says, shoving the letter at her. “I’m going up to Highcombe.”
“Why?” is all she can manage; it’s too much, too startling, too quick and she feels very young and as if she’s forgotten everything of a sudden.
“Because he said that my body can’t help but remember the Hill and that his always remembered Highcombe the night I drugged you.”
He doesn’t leave her time to respond, and is off in a carriage, wrapped in a blanket, alone, before she even manages to slit the letter’s seal.
When he arrives, Alec does as he’s been told first, lest he lose the courage for it, or somehow gain the courage to end himself, even as he know he won’t. He goes to the stream and kneels to open the jar into the water. The stream will flow to the river which flows to the ocean and Richard will be spread thin to all his homes, as fragile as Alec now feels.
He rinses the jar in the stream, over and over, because once he gets up, it will be done and there will be nothing left to touch of the man who drove his every step that madness didn’t. His knees are stiff, but Alec doesn’t care. He’s had that thought before thanks to Richard, he realizes and smiles perversely at no one. Eventually, he gets up, goes, not to the great house, but to the small one attached, Richard’s house, and sets the jar, like any other now, down on a random shelf. Then he sits at the rough table, and opens the letter Richard had passed him three days before his death.
“You wouldn’t believe this,” he whispers, shaking all over, half expecting Richard to appear on the stair and invite him up it, “but I think I’ve forgotten how to speak.”
http://community.livejournal.com/_riverside/12050.html
TITLE: The Death of the Swordsman
Pairing: Richard/Alec
Rating: PG
Warnings: Do I really have to warn for character death with a title like that? Character death.
Notes: I am still waiting for Fall of the Kings to show up from Amazon, so if this contradicts something in there, my apologies, just go with it as an AU.
Disclaimer: These lovely characters and their world belong, of course, to Ellen Kushner
When Richard is dying he realizes that some part of Alec has always thought of the Hill as home, even as they are now so very far away from their city. Even if his heart doesn’t feel it, even if his intellect rejects it, the motes of being that make up Alec know where he is from and to where he will return. Richard’s body, though able to see such impulses in others, seems to possess no similar imperatives for itself.
He has come too far in his life from the boy he once was to wish to be buried by the apple trees of the orchard alongside which his mother lived, just as he has come too far from the story he and Alec once were to want to be in a grubby grave strewn with too many flowers at the edge of Riverside. Besides, Alec is fragile enough; asking the man to escort his body across the sea when he goes home, and Alec will choose to go home, is probably unwise.
Alec seems to handle the business of Richard’s dying well, perhaps because it is slow and therefore romantic. Romance is drama, and Alec has certainly always understood that. Or, perhaps, because it is slow it is an object of study. Either way, Richard is grateful and proud of him, especially when the swordsman says he needs to write to Katherine and Alec fetches him a secretary instead of doing it himself.
Dear Katherine,
I expect your uncle will give you this letter, having returned to the city and to the Hill. If the seal is unbroken, he doesn’t know its contents; he was kind enough to fetch a dying man a secretary. He has grace, your uncle, if little common sense.
Please forgive me for needing to tell you that in my heart you have always been the girl I helped with the sword, because truly, you taught yourself, by the wishing of the thing, as I, I understand now, also taught myself. I know you think I should have made things easier between your uncle and I, as he certainly lacked the ability to make things so himself. But I am – was – prideful, and that’s why he’s loved me. It was necessary we hurt each other the way we did. It was like blades testing, and I can die knowing we both have certainty because of it.
But, of course, your uncle is your uncle. Please remind him of this when he forgets it. Please see that someone looks out for him. Make sure he knows I want him loved and happy. I made him a promise once, a very foolish promise when we didn’t know each other so well that I thought it would matter. I told him that one day I would let him die by my hand. It was what he seemed to want when we were very young. Tell him, if it seems needful, that I’ll keep the promise. I know that makes no sense, and can even be called a lie, but I think he will need to hear it, and I know he knows how to believe it.
In all these years of our writing, I have always wasted my time telling you how much I love him. But, of course, I have also long loved you, my only and borrowed child. Be sure not to cry more than you need.
Yours,
Richard
“Alec,” he says, when his friend returns, when the secretary is gone. “Come sit.”
Alec is obedient, and Richard, hearing his motion across the room, feeling the grace with which he sits, thinks it very beautiful. The man had rarely allowed himself that softness when they were both young. It is a shame, in a way, Richard feels, but rare things sparkle more finely, and in Alec’s presence it has often been, often enough anyway, as if he can still see.
Richard fishes for his hand, smiles as his fingers brush over the rings – he can still name how each was won and how each was given.
“I want you to see that I’m burned,” Richard says, thinking it best without preamble, less room in which Alec can become hysterical.
“Why?” he sounds aghast.
Richard smiles, laughs softly. “Because you’re going home, and I don’t want to be left here, and escorting my body seems like too much of a burden to place on you. Besides, I trust the boat that little.”
He laughs, but then his fingers grip Richard’s far too hard and he winces, but Alec either doesn’t notice or care. “How am I supposed to bear the crossing without you?” The anguish in it frightens Richard.
“You could pretend I’m down in the cabin vomiting,” Richard offers unhelpfully.
Alec shakes his head, and then adds with wretchedly false bravado, “And abscond with a sailor so I don’t have to nurse you.”
“Something like that, and then you can come back to our room, and tell me all about it.”
“Will you listen?” Alec asks, as the tinge of expected hysteria becomes obvious in his voice.
“To every word.”
Alec smiles, tries to be brave, but he’s never been brave and Richard can’t see it anyway, and so he lies down, his head on Richard’s shoulder.
“How much longer do you think?”
“A few weeks, not more.” Then, after a long pause, “I still have some life left in me, for you, anyway, what shall we do?”
“Stay in bed,” Alec says softly, and Richard hums, if only at the idea of it.
When Alec returns to the city, clutching a case containing the jar that holds Richard’s ashes, the first thing he does is see his niece.
“Here. It’s from him,” he says, shoving the letter at her. “I’m going up to Highcombe.”
“Why?” is all she can manage; it’s too much, too startling, too quick and she feels very young and as if she’s forgotten everything of a sudden.
“Because he said that my body can’t help but remember the Hill and that his always remembered Highcombe the night I drugged you.”
He doesn’t leave her time to respond, and is off in a carriage, wrapped in a blanket, alone, before she even manages to slit the letter’s seal.
When he arrives, Alec does as he’s been told first, lest he lose the courage for it, or somehow gain the courage to end himself, even as he know he won’t. He goes to the stream and kneels to open the jar into the water. The stream will flow to the river which flows to the ocean and Richard will be spread thin to all his homes, as fragile as Alec now feels.
He rinses the jar in the stream, over and over, because once he gets up, it will be done and there will be nothing left to touch of the man who drove his every step that madness didn’t. His knees are stiff, but Alec doesn’t care. He’s had that thought before thanks to Richard, he realizes and smiles perversely at no one. Eventually, he gets up, goes, not to the great house, but to the small one attached, Richard’s house, and sets the jar, like any other now, down on a random shelf. Then he sits at the rough table, and opens the letter Richard had passed him three days before his death.
Tell me something, Alec.
“You wouldn’t believe this,” he whispers, shaking all over, half expecting Richard to appear on the stair and invite him up it, “but I think I’ve forgotten how to speak.”
