Work Text:
And Never the Twain Shall Meet.
by N. Ranken
spooniekid@yahoo.com
A flicker of a candle, pen scratching over paper. The scent of ink clogged the room, and the wizard's apprentice could nearly taste its bitterness as he bent over his desk, intent on his task.
//I like talking to Bob--it's a simple observation, but profound. We talk from the time I get downstairs until I get ready to go to bed--or fall asleep on the library couch, one of the two. I don't think Bob gets to sleep, though, because of the curse. I'm not sure why I haven't asked him; I ask about everything else. We're comfortable with each other now, even to the point where he's stopped giving me formal lessons--we just talk, and I learn that way. I think he called it the Socratic Method of teaching, but he'd materilised that day in a toga since it was March fifteenth. I don't remember much about what we discussed that day; I was too busy trying not to be noticed as I studied what skin I could see..
//Yeah, I have it pretty bad for my mentor. I'm not going to tell him; I told him I had a headache and went to lie down for awhile, when I'm actually up here writing. I'm distracted in my lessons, I'm neglecting my work. This thing is hanging over me all the time and eventually, something I really don't want to say is going to slip out. Bob is the best friend I have in the world, and I will *not* lose him because I screw up somehow and say something I shouldn't. Better that I just get all this out here, pour it all out on paper, and then burn it before anyone can read it. Bob once taught me how to burn a piece of paper right down to its soul so that whatever was written on it could never be recovered. There is a darker component, though; a way to use the words on the page as a tether to the memories they reference. When I do that, it'll rip these thrice-damned thoughts out of my head and I won't have to worry about it anymore. No stray thoughts, no watching the way his hands float on the air when he illustrates a particular point - which I almost always fail to grasp due to a total lack of concentration - and most important of all, no risk of a slip of a tongue that could cost me the trust of the last person on earth who cares more about me than what
I can do.
//I'd like to say that Bob is like my father, but they're not even in the same galaxy. I've learned things from both of them, but that's about the only thing they have in common. Everything with Bob is so much… more, I suppose, than anything my father could have taught me. I mean, Dad showed me how to make great lasagne. Bob taught me to make venison in sparkling red wine sauce with cranberry rice and stuffed grape leaves. When Uncle Justin isn't here, which is almost all the time, it's literally just Bob and me, and I pretty much fend for myself under his guidance. I don't think I was ever supposed to be left on my own like that, but I'm used to being responsible for myself with Dad. Besides, like I said, Bob's here, and as long as I can find him, I'm not worried about anything. There's a cleaning crew that comes in once a week to keep the dust off everything and when my uncle's hom--here, we have a cook. I was going to say 'when he's home,' but I don't think this is his home any more than mine, even though he grew up here. For me, home used to be where Dad was. Now, it's where Bob is. Sometimes I wonder if Bob's home is in my arms when I carry him--his skull, I mean. Then, I catch myself thinking it, and realise that I'm acting like a girl, and make myself stop.
//No, that's not really true. I stop because when Bob asks me what I'm thinking about, I can't lie to him. I don't ever think to, and when I do, he can spot even a small fact-fudge a mile away. We're too used to each other for that. When Bob and I talk, it's a fluid sharing of ideas, moving from subject to subject and back again without a blink. We talk for hours, making connections and sharing insights. Sometimes, the things we discuss at moonrise tie into the things we talked about at noon, and they all fall into place and make sense. It helps that I can ask him anything. The only times he won't answer are when I venture too close to personal things that hurt him to talk about. I don't want him to hurt, and he always looks surprised when I back off and apologise. Uncle Justin can command Bob to tell him anything, and I probably could, too, if I didn't care about him. But, I do, and I won't force him. If it's important enough, I can trust him to tell me.
//I trust him because he trusts me, not because he's bound to his skull and unable to hurt me. He treats me, if not as an equal, at least as an adult, never insisting that I wait until I'm older or assuming that I'm not capable of understanding. He's never treated me like a kid, even though I'm his student. Then again, in the time he's from, I *would be considered a full adult. Sometimes he sounds very old and tired, usually when he's talking to my uncle. The few times I've made him sound like that, I've felt horrible. I'd much rather work him into a huffing, puffing lather, letting him act all frustrated and superior while we play-bicker. Everyone needs a little play, even undead, bad-assed necromancers. He occasionally gets upset for real, usually when we're working on mathematics. I'm better at concepts, so I can discuss theory with him until the stars are high, but the numbers never want to behave. He keeps accusing me of being Aristotelian, and I really need to look up why.
//Then again, sometimes when we talk, it's not about learning anything my uncle wants me to know. If I take Bob's skull with me, we can lie on the grass (well, I can lie on it, and he can make it look like he is) and look up at the stars at night. He's told me all their names, but I usually pretend to forget so I can hear him tell me the stories again. There's something about his voice--he was a lord in Britain forever ago, but he's travelled both before and after his imprisonment, so his accent is thicker than if it were 'just' British. He says he's a baritone, and that I'll end up a tenor when my voice stops cracking like a dropped vase. I'd like to be able to sing with him someday; I heard him once, and I don't know how he did it, but he wove a spell without using any magic.
//I guess I can pretty much say that I'm in love with him, if love is what I think it is. I'm never going to tell him, either. There's someone he misses, and I'm not naïve enough to think that anyone as smart, funny, talented, and gorgeous as he is didn't have a companion. I'm not going to ruin that by trying to replace her, and I don't want him to think even for a moment that I am. If he loved her, whoever she was, as much as Dad loved Mom, then he wouldn't want to do anything to make her memory seem cheap. I'm glad Dad taught me that so I didn't have to learn it the hard way.
***
Sitting back, Harry dropped his pen, reaching up to scrub his hands over his face. He cursed softly at the feel of a sticky smear, and pulled his hand back to glare at the streak of ink. He could feel the matching mark drying on his face, a smear of sepia from cheek to chin to brow. He looked over the drying papers, wincing at his penmanship, and reflected that it was a good thing Bob would never see them. After the man was done growling in disapproval at the content, he'd start in about the importance of proper penmanship, which included lack of smudges. Not for the first time, Harry wished that Bob allowed him pencils instead of the inkdip fountain pens, but the sorcerer insisted that if Harry's mistakes were in indelible ink, they would be more likely stick in the young man's memory so as to not be made again.
The young man put the ink and pen away, deciding to leave the blank paper until he'd washed up. He gathered up the papers full of his words, along with a sheaf of smudged attempts at copying sigils and pentagrams. He needed more than just the ramblings to mass enough for the spell. A moment's search netted him one of the tea-candles he used instead of tapers for milling about his room before bed, and set off downstairs.
***
I don't think he even saw me as he stalked through the library and out into the garden, though to be fair, I had been in a corner ostensibly assessing the damage Harry had done to a candelabra. I had seen the young man storm from his room--Morningway had not set any watching-wards inside the chamber--with a parcel, but I hadn't expected him to come down here. I watched through the glass door, which he'd neglected to shut, as he fished a piece of chalk from his pocket and scribed a circle on the bricks.
I felt the pulse of magic as he closed the circle, and stepped toward the door to better observe. He was too far away for me to hear him, but I could see the words he formed, and when I realised what he was trying to do, it speared me with cold dread. In my mind's eye, I could see at once what would happen: Harry would be led into the cold, stone chamber, a hood over his head, and made to kneel in the same spot that had been tenanted by murderers, thieves, rapists, and worse… Mai would stand before him with her sword upraised, eager for the excuse to remove any support Morningway might have, even though Harry was as likely to follow his uncle as a gosling was likely to follow a badger away from the water's edge.
**Exignesce, epistula! Oblive, memoria. Scriptum non revoca. Scitum non recognosce.** He was too distant; I tried to rush forward, but I was unable to move past the limits Mai had set upon my entrapment. I couldn't break his circle and stop him, as I most assuredly would have had he been mine when I'd been alive. Harry was as horrid at Latin as had been in his youth as he is now, but he didn't balk at the incantation; he had remembered my tale--meant as a cautionary, not encouragement--too well. I watched him frown at the papers as the fire from the votive sped through them, and felt a surge of relief that the spell had not worked. He had tried to wipe his own memory with black magic, and I thanked the stars I had not taught him how to twist curses.
I called out to him, barking with the fear and worry, regretting intensely ever having told him the story behind the evocation. I felt him drop the circle, and cursed the limited tether that would not let me go out to meet him. He made his way back in, brow creased with frustration and disappointment. "It didn't work," he growled as he faced me, standing eye-to-eye. "Why?"
"Perhaps because I have never taught you how to actually *perform* black magic? Stars and stones, Harry, are you trying to get yourself killed?" My voice rose as I spoke, and I knew my eyes were harsh. He flinched neither at my tone nor my look, his dark eyes instead filled with confusion.
"You said it wasn't black," he protested, puzzling me until I realised he'd meant the incantation he'd used to ensure the paper couldn't be reconstituted. "You said it was a protection, a way for a wizard to keep his knowledge from being turned against him."
"The *paper*, yes," I agreed readily. "Carving holes in your own mind is just as bad as rending them from another's; it is still black magic! I've gone over the Laws with you; you know them by heart!" I paced back and forth, my agitation plain. I'm still not sure whether I was more worried about the potential for his getting in trouble or for the thought that I might lose the only friend I'd had for centuries. "DePlata used the spell and was *killed*, Harry; I told you that. I watched as they knelt him on the stone and severed his head from his body." At that moment, I wished for nothing more than the ability to hold onto the young man's shoulders and shake him until his teeth rattled. "And if you ever, *ever* make me do the same for you, I will never forgive you for as long as I exist. Do you understand me?"
It speared me to see the look of horror on his face; he relied on me as much as I on him, and it seemed he found the thought of our separation to be as unpleasant as I. "I… I'm sorry, Bob." Even after all this time, it still felt strange for him to apologise to me. It's a courtesy I've spent aeons without. "I just… there's something that keeps bugging me, and I thought if I could get rid of it, it would make things easier."
I shook my head, a rueful smile taking my face against my will. "Dear idiot boy," I sighed. "We're not granted the bliss of forgetfulness. We have to remember these things, especially when they're painful. It keeps us from making the same mistakes over and over again."
There was silence in the library as he slid his gaze away from mine, over onto the empty sockets that stared lifelessly out over the room. My eyes had once been in them, my lips had once covered those teeth. I still don't like looking at it; it's disturbing to see something that should be inside me. Wards crawl over its surface like vines, shoring up its strength and keeping me captive inside it, but it is the only thing that keeps me trapped here on this plane, never able to move on… it's the only thing that keeps me with Harry.
I've always been able to feel his hands when he touches it, like tendrils of a forgotten breeze sliding over my skin. Many times, I have found myself purring as he stroked it absently, fingers tracing the chiselled marks as he read, or snuggled it close when he slept. I fought the urge to close my eyes when he touched it then, able to both see and feel the quiver in his hands as he drew it close to his body. It was the closest he could come to a hug, and he starved for contact. I wish I could have given it to him more than just in the occasional pockets of NeverNever we managed to create for ourselves.
"No, Bob," I heard him whisper. "I promise."
He nearly broke that promise once.
I nearly didn't forgive him.
N. Ranken