"Sing a song, of a dream, long ago, far away..."
Linda worries sometimes that she's the only one who remembers this tree. On her full day's walk from Pospos to Madril, to visit her aunt and uncle at the hotel they run, she always passes it by, and remembers one time when it had the lucky fortune of being the tree they all slept under. Its leaves were giving off this strange fragrance - they still do - and while Epros was quite fond of it and it didn't irritate the rest of them at all, the ghosts seemed loath to approach it. It made an excellent spot for staying the night unmolested.
"In my head, in my heart, I remember this day..."
She'd squabbled with Marlene something fierce for the one spot in the tree that would make a comfortable sleeping place, but in the end everyone but Big Bull had been on her side, with Ari refusing to cast his vote at all. Epros had stayed up in the tree, too, taking a more precarious perch but counting on his uncanny ability to float should he fall in the middle of the night. Whenever she comes back to this tree, whenever she's feeling particularly nostalgic, Linda sprawls out into the place where she slept that night.
"No, no, no, no, I can't ever...forget; no, no, no, no, I don't ever...regret..."
If she lays down on her stomach, Linda can see the place in the side of the tree trunk where Stan had commanded Ari to carve his initials: SHT XIV. A few hours later when the men had all run off to bathe in the large puddle-pond about fifty yards away, Rosalyn had made a deeper slash between the H and the T to form an I. The ensuing argument had left Ari in confused tears and the rest of them in convulsive laughter. Linda remembers fondly, however, that Stan won that round.
"Every hour, every day, every week, every year..."
There's a big hole at the base of the tree, lots of dirt missing from between two roots, where one of those darn Maneating Onions had managed to brave the smell of the wafting leaves - masked, she assumes, by its own stench - and sneak up on them. If Big Bull hadn't been so constantly alert, almost to the point of being paranoid, Kisling could have been killed. As it was, the firecracker wrestler had practically blown the thing up. Marlene complained about an onion allergy for days, but they were safe.
"I recall, recollect, how I made it to here..."
The trees in Pospos are usually kind of scraggly, even in the summertime when the snow eases up enough to allow them a bit more foliage than usual. Linda likes her little igloo, within walking distance of every place she'd ever need to go, but she's also glad that she has so many excuses to venture outside of the enchanted pocket of eternal wintry climate that she's sort of made her home. The circus is one; her aunt and uncle are another. Every so often she wishes she had more.
"No, no, no, no, I can't ever...forget..."
Her career hasn't quite taken off yet, but it's only a matter of time; even Linda herself can look back and realize that she was extremely foolish despite having helped save the world. Her voice needed training, and she's had it; her attitude needed maturing, and she's working as hard as she can on that, too. Her aspirations to be famous haven't left her, though - she's tenacious that way - and she really hopes that someday she makes it big, because maybe then the others would come to see her shows. And maybe then she'd get to see them. And maybe then she'd be convinced that she wasn't the only one who preferred to keep everything that they'd been through together fresh in her mind. Teenage girls just don't get the chance to save the world every day.
"No, no, no, no, I don't ever...regret..."
The voice that joins with hers is extremely unexpected, a familiar, raw sort of tone but with an elegant timbre behind it yearning to break through. It just barely holds enough edge to be male, the deeper octave almost implying alto as much as it does tenor. Linda knows who it is, and it is for that reason that she does not look up into the higher branches where the other singer is surely resting, in the same place he slept that night years ago while she slept in the place she's sitting now.
"How do you know this song?" she asks, still not looking at him. "I wrote it myself."
The presence vanishes from above her and reappears at her side, thick velvet laced with pinstripes brushing against her old ratty silk and tulle. His arm rests across her shoulder, fingerless lace gloves over hands with nails painted wine-purple brushing fondly against her orange hair like they had only once before, like Linda had always wished they would again.
"Because it isn't only you," he says; "for surely, I remember too."
And Linda realizes that she has forgotten part of their journey: she had been singing this song as they walked through the World Library, composing it in her head when she was struck with an idea based on a book title.
"I guess I don't remember everything, Epros," she whispers, and leans into his chest, careful to keep her horns away from his eyes more out of fear of smudging his eyeliner than anything else.
"It's not your burden to bear. All of us were there." He trails the hand on her opposite side up to caress the smooth skin of her cheek, unconsciously reaching up to wipe away tears that didn't even start to flow until his third or fourth sweep. "Ari's still living just outside Tenel; I also see Big Bull, he's doing quite well. The Princess - who knows what's become of the dear? And Kisling just finished his thesis this year. Why don't you write them, or even stop by? We're worried about you, the others and I..."
It's hard for Linda, who speaks so freely and is a user of voice by nature, to cope with something being hard to say, so she finally just rips the question from her own throat. "And what of Rosalyn...and you?" Her voice is low and garbled now, not the sweet soprano tones of her singing any longer.
He tenses, and stops stroking her hair and her face. "I...I have to admit, 'twas a terrible thing. She just couldn't date me - a past Evil King?" His lips twist into a clown's sad smile, with the makeup around the corner of his eyes crinkling to a darker shade of violet, and a tiny brittle laugh escapes as well.
Her face mimics the smile in her own way; the tears are her eyeliner. "I guess us Evil Kings can only handle each other, huh?"
"I...suppose that that's true." A pause, and his hand returns. "So...can I stay with you?"
The bark of the tree is suddenly abrasive against the backs of her knees, and it's colder on this dim path halfway to Madril than she thinks it ever is, even in Pospos. The sharp sting of blade-sharp cards and rapiers that she had imagined in her heart has vanished, and the sweet fragrance of the leaves surrounding her takes a back seat to the willow-wood and snowflower scent of the Phantom she once loved, and - she lets herself remember now - that she still does love.
"Let's go home," Linda says decisively, and stands up in the tree to lean against its trunk and look him in the face. "I still need to write the third verse."