ioduanlogs | [OPEN] just your eyes

Entry tags:

[OPEN] just your eyes

Characters: The Fool + you?
Date: Throughout February
Location: Aifaran, the Dreaming Bridge, the Ban Om central Temple
Situation: Various.
Warnings/Rating: A bit of violence.

I. MISTAKEN IDENTITY (CRIME AFFINITY 4)

(OOC: this takes place at the very end of the month! and just one person respond to this one please, I don't want the Fool mugged more than once!)

Perhaps the Fool should count his blessings that this case of mistaken identity ends as abruptly as it does--with him, prostrate on the dirty ground of a backstreet alley, one shaking hand clutched to his face while the other is extended out almost desperately to fend off his would-be attacker. Before additional blows can rain down against him, though, his attacker promptly backs off, and takes off at a sprint down the alleyway.

Dazed and bloody, the Fool lays where he's left, coming back to his senses slowly... along with a horrifying awareness of the filth that now clings to his clothes and skin. ...He could probably use some help.

II. WOULD YOU LIKE SOME LITERATURE (FAITH AFFINITY 3)

Possibly proselytizing evangelists of any variety might have bothered someone else, but the Fool has always possessed a keen interest in divinity--and very little else in Konryu has captured and held his attention with the same unyielding fascination as the Great Turtles. When he is approached by a presentative of the Ban Om, therefore, it is only natural for him to become quite excited by the subject.

It is some days later when the Fool finds himself seated within the peaceful, sprawling gardens of the central Temple's grounds, absently toying with the small turtle charm that he had acquired at some point. What would it have been like, he can't help but wonder, if the folk of the Six Duchies, of Jhaampe, of Bingtown and Trehaug, had grown to venerate dragonkind with this same deep respect? "Perhaps nothing at all," he muses out loud to the little turtle in his grasp, his lips quirking into a most whimsical smirk. "I can scarcely imagine a dragon deigning to carry a human civilization upon its back."

Absently, he begins to work at threading the charm onto a bracelet already richly decorated with wooden baubles carved by his own hand.

III. GALLERY OPENING (ART AFFINITY 3)

Perhaps it is more Lord Golden who slips into this special exhibit than Fool, for he appears as at home here among the art connoisseurs and critics of Aifaran as he had days ago within the central Temple of Ban Om. A touch more artfully composed, of course, with more makeup to emphasize the dramatic amber of his eyes and high cheekbones, to better blend in with this society. But Lord Golden's histrionic mannerisms and vanity are absent; when he smiles at someone eager to hear the opinion of one of the Dreamfolk on the artwork, his commentary is candid, rather than inflammatory.

At some stage, perhaps he slips away from the crowd to consider a piece of artwork over a glass of wine, or steps outside to take in the air and allow himself a break from the pressures of this strange society he's ingratiating himself within. Perhaps that is where he catches your eye.

IV. WILDCARD!

(surprise me!)

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This is quite the beautiful place.

Fitz could well masquerade as someone of high society here. He has some experience with moving amongst diplomats as well as guardsmen, after all. With royalty, as well as farmfolk.

However, his heart is not in it, and so he has taken on the task of seeing to the gardens in this place, for a small additional stipend, for the next few days. He spends his time weeding, thinking with fondness of Patience and her dislike for marigolds in the wrong place. He avoids the patrons of the art gallery as best he can, until there is a strange... absence of presence behind him.

A person, yet with no scent.

He pivots from his kneeling position, dressed in his dusty but serviceable clothes. One long weed trailing from one hand, a garden fork in the other.

"Fool," he breathes.

There is an elegant veranda just beyond the art gallery's walls, which is shaded from both sun and moonlight by a wooden trellis draped all over with blooming wisteria (or something that looks like it), and it is beneath this trellis that the Fool currently stands, leaning against the railing with his slim arms folded over his chest and his eyes turned... somewhere.

It doesn't matter, precisely, what he was looking at before. When his eyes find Fitz, the stillness that settles over him is profound; all the artifice in his expression slips away.

It cannot be.

"...Fitz?"

Fitz stares. It's Lord Golden, and yet not quite. There's far more of the Fool there. Elegant and beautiful, eyes shadowed.

This must be some stop on the way to the Fool's school. Perhaps Prilkop is here, somewhere. Perhaps it's not too late, perhaps Fitz can still convince him to come back to Buck after he visits his school, to come back. Perhaps he can convince him that his presence won't interrupt Fitz's life.

He scrambles to his feet, letting the weed drop, letting the fork clatter to the ground. He takes two awkward half-running steps, desperately wanting to catch the Fool up in his arms, because he looks well enough for it and because he's here, but... but he stops. Who knows who might be watching.

"I cannot believe it," he says, instead, a smile beginning to stretch his features.

"I cannot believe it," says this smiling spectre from the Fool's near-recent past, and with that cherished face comes an onslaught of too vivid memories--of a flight across a sea on a dragon's back, of a quest to preserve the honour of the Farseer prince, of a journey through an icy cave towards certain death--of pain beyond imagining, beyond description, and the death that followed.

Of living in the liminal space between his body and Fitz's. The pain--the slow, aching pain--of healing, and the gift of life given back to him, for the love of him.

Fitz. His Catalyst, his friend, his beloved--he cannot be here.

The Fool's jaw works, but words don't come at first. He takes a hesitant step backward, rather than forward. "How...? How are you here?"

Fitz swallows, steeling himself at the Fool's backward step. He knows him far better, now, after having inhabited his body.

He does not know all that is written on his face, and for a moment it frightens him.

"I wish I knew."

On 24 February 2018 at 12:03, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

Fitz may be able to mask much from the rest of the world--Chade taught him well--but there is little he has ever been able to truly hide from the Fool. It's the fright that flickers across his face that undoes him, that weakens his resolve to keep his distance. He can't--not after all they've been through.

He hesitates, eyes wide as he deliberates over his course of action. But really, there is no choice to be made. The dam breaks, and the Fool takes two quick strides forward to throw his arms around Fitz's shoulders in a tight embrace.

"Tell me," he pleads in a voice on the cusp of breaking, "that you are not dead."

Fitz has been here for a few days. He's explored, he's learned about the way things work, he's spoken to a few people. He has a place to sleep, and he has sufficient coin to buy food each day. What he does not have, however, is a way to get out of here, a way to get home.

What he has now, is someone who knows him well enough to know how that chafes.

Someone who knows what he needs.

Fitz's breath hitches in his chest as the tawny man embraces him, heedless of how Fitz's general grubbiness will affect his fine clothes. Fitz buries his face in the Fool's shoulder for a moment, then laughs shakily. "I believe not. I hope I would know. I have enough experience."

On 24 February 2018 at 13:24, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

He cannot fully forget Prilkop's warning about the dangers of a Prophet and Catalyst remaining in such close proximity to each other after achieving their life's work. The Prophet should push him away, should let their paths diverge now that the work is done.

But the Fool, by his own admission, has never been wise.

Fitz's weak laughter brings an echo of it out of the Fool who, disregarding the state of Fitz's clothes, only tightens his embrace before reluctantly forcing himself to let go. He steps back just enough to place his hands on Fitz's arms and look him over, as though searching for the marks of time upon him--but no, he is nearly exactly as he was when the Fool left him behind. "Oh Fitz," he sighs, his expression growing melancholic, "I had hoped you would go to Molly, that you would be with her now."

(A uniquely painful hope, to wish his love into the arms of someone else. But he knows Fitz's heart.)

The Fool tried to push him away, tried to tell him to return to the Six Duchies, to return to Molly, to Kettricken, to Buckkeep, to his life. The Fool gave him back his pains, and the subtleties of joy and despair.

And yet he tried to remove himself from Fitz's life.

This may well be dangerous for the future, and yet everything that Fitz has done has been dangerous. He cannot walk away from this man. Not again. Not again!

The Fool laughs a little, then steps back, holding onto him. Fitz is careful not to grip his back too tightly. He appears healed, but appearances are not always truth.

"I'dd intended to, once I convinced you to return with me," Fitz says wryly. "She now knows that I live, and that Burrich has - has died. Yet somehow the fates conspire to keep me with you."

He manages a smile at that. He is concerned about them all, mortally concerned, and yet he cannot be less than pleased to have found the Fool when he thought him lost.

The scars the Pale Woman gave him have been healed, their evidence erased, but the pain remains in more subtle ways. Gently, so as to not give the impression of wanting to put too much distance between himself and Fitz, he shifts so that his friend's hands have no choice but to slip from his back. (It is better not to be reminded of what used to be there in his skin, of who put those marks there, of how they were stripped from him--)

Oh, it is much easier to turn his attention to Fitz's predictable stubbornness. The Fool exhales a long sigh and gives his friend a tired look. "Fitz, you know I cannot," he starts to remind him with as much gentleness as he can muster, before lifting his chin. Perhaps a different tactic.

"Let that be an argument for another time. Look around us," he points out, with an artful gesture at the entirety of Aifaran, of the archipelago, the myriad of strange folk and technologies that surround them. "Neither of us are returning to the Six Duchies anytime soon."

The Fool disengages from him as deftly as ever. Fitz is not foolish enough to take hurt from it. That his friend is whole enough after what had been done to him to even allow such touch is a treasure, a gift. Fitz recalls only too well what torture does to a person.

He cannot but grin at the Fool's response to him. That he is here even to argue with...

"Ah. Yes. I had hoped, initially, that this was an Elderling city," Fitz agrees, shoulders slumping. "This is not, then, some expected stop on your trip to your childhood school."

On 25 February 2018 at 14:44, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

"This is not, then, some expected stop on your trip to your childhood school."

The Fool considers Fitz carefully as he tries his best to come up with an adequate response to that statement. No, they are nowhere near Clerres--they are nowhere near their world, and the rules that had applies to their lived experiences in the Six Duchies, in the Outislands, won't apply here. Watching Fitz now, he wonders, truly, how much he realizes their lives have changed.

"Fitz," he begins again softly, "we aren't even in our own world anymore. We have nothing like--like this," and here, he withdraws the yimo tablet that had been given to him at the Dreaming Bridge, pulls up the text exchanges he has had with his friend X, then looks to Fitz again, "in Clerres."

He's been bracing himself for this last revelation, and wonders whether Fitz should be sitting when he hears it. "I am... unsure how you will return to Molly, from here." Or if he will ever see her again. Those words, however, he keeps to himself.

The Fool is quiet for a moment, and Fitz sighs. It is not so easy, no. He wonders for a moment if he has again lost months in the blink of an eye travel to come here. Perhaps that is the only way in which he could ever hope to compete with the Fool's expected lifespan, bar accident, injury, and torture. If he skips here, skips there, like a flat pebble across a stream.

He peers at the Fool's yimo, and nods. "I suspected those were not technology from our world when I saw mine," he sighs. Elderling technology is wondrous and strange, but there is a... a sameness to it, that he perhaps has only realised since being confronted with something so very different. It is similarly not anything that he has seen from Chalced, or Bingtown, or anywhere else.

There's a headshake.

"I will find a way for us to leave, or I will assist those who find a way. I am Changer, Fool. I will not allow this to be all."

He will find a way to Molly, and to have the Fool once more by his side. He will.

On 27 February 2018 at 01:33, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

He won't. But the Fool knows better than to be the one to argue with Fitz when he has that look in his eye. Only Nighteyes ever made any headway with him when he was in these moods. (Oh, Nighteyes.)

The Fool manages a shadow of a smile for Fitz at his certainty and says nothing. He looks away, back towards the gardens where Fitz was working mere moments ago, then back again with a questioning furl in between his brows. "You chose to be a gardener?" he asks him at last, and this time his smile grows warmer.

The Fool's smile is slight, and Fitz raises a wry, amused eyebrow at him. He does not expect it to be easy. When has anything for either of them been easy, after all.

He feels heat rise in his cheeks. "For now," he says. "I take odd jobs here and there. Patience taught me enough about gardening that I have not disgraced myself too terribly."

On 27 February 2018 at 14:11, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

The slight warmth of his smile breaks into a quiet laugh when Fitz brings up Lady Patience. "Oh, I would not be so sure," he demurs, a wicked glint in his eye, but he's clearly teasing now, that little barb never intended to wound.

He hesitates, then places a hand on Fitz's forearm. "This is no place for us to catch up," he admits, "and look at you, covered in dirt. Let's return to the Bridge. You can get cleaned up, and then..." A pause, a helpless shrug. "We can discuss our--new circumstances."

Fitz makes a good natured face at him. "I will attend to your gardens, and make the flowers spell out rude words," he warns lightly.

The Fool has an excellent point, and Fitz has no intention of allowing him to wander too far. "I had best finish first, else Burrich should rise from his death purely to punish me. Do you need to make farewells?"

On 28 February 2018 at 03:47, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

"I will attend to your gardens, and make the flowers spell out rude words."

"What a relief, in that case, that I'm but a penniless near-pauper," the Fool rejoins; his smile has become a grin without his permission, his touch upon Fitz's arm lingering. (To be sure he doesn't look penniless--but then, he's been liberally spending the stipend given to him by the Bridge on just enough bits of finery to garb himself well. He has always been inclined towards vanity.)

As for the rest, he comes back to himself and recalls where they are, and turns a tired glance towards the art gallery and the society within it. "Yes, there are a few people I should speak to before I slip away for the night." A pause; it sounds a bit like they're arranging some kind of clandestine rendez-vous, and the thought makes him colour some, which the shade hides well. "Shall I meet you back at the Bridge in a few hours?"

Fitz chuckles at that, moreso at the light in the Fool's face. It has been too long, and he'd thought the Fool lost to him for some months yet. "We have never needed much."

...he looks quite tired. Fitz holds himself back from anxious queries, from fussing. The Fool has never wanted that from him, or from anyone. The Fool's cheeks darken briefly, making him even more tawny, and Fitz cannot pretend to understand the cause of it.

"Yes," he says gladly. "I will bring food."

On 28 February 2018 at 13:39, afoolsgold - DW Comment < dw_null@dreamwidth.org> wrote:

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[OPEN] just your eyes

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