Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold (W B Yeats). Three weeks after Garrett leaves the Keepers, those left behind reflect on the past. There's no such thing as forever, or narrative convenience, or fairytales, and everyone knows that this won't end happily. Happy is not a word that fate knows.
Even now, three weeks later, none of them could quite believe it.
Athena Talway sat at her desk in the library and dreamed of the past as she drew Keeper glyphs. Dreamed of dormitories and friendships and childhood's end and the part of the story that every teller seems to forget. That which is left behind.
Garrett? Are you still awake?
Hm? Athena, what are you doing in here?
Can't sleep.
Well, come on, then. Shh! Don't let them catch you in here.
Oh, Garrett, what are they going to do to me? Budge up. That's better.
Say, Athena?
What?
Have you ever- ever wondered about what's outside this compound? Outside the City?
Not really. Who cares about that sort of thing? And anyway, Instructor Semfield said that only bad children want to leave.
I guess that makes me bad, then.
Garrett! You're not- bad. Really. You'll soon forget about the City. Just think about it! What's there? Here, we have the library, and we can look at all the rude books when Semmy isn't looking, and then there's the orchard and the plum trees, and we can go swimming there when it's hot, and there's Keeper Artemus and that cook who gives us extra and-
Okay. That stuff's all good, I suppose, but don't you ever feel like there's something more? Like we're sort of…caged. Sometimes…sometimes I just want to go out into the City without anyone watching me or telling me where to go, or out into the forest, where there's nobody there, and I can run. Or across the rooftops.
Stop it. Just…stop it. Everything's fine. You're not going to leave. We'll all become Keepers and we'll be friends forever and this won't ever change. It can't.
Garrett had gone very quiet after that, and hadn't mentioned it again. Sometimes, Athena wished that he had. Maybe he wouldn't have gone. Or maybe she would have followed. But they were divided and nothing was the same.
Artemus hadn't really believed them when they'd told him that Garrett was gone. But finally, like any true Keeper, he had mastered his thoughts and found his equilibrium and slowly killed his feelings. Somehow, he had always known that this would happen. It made things easier, made them harder.
It was the what if's that plagued him. Artemus had studied history and the past and times long gone, and he knew that there are a thousand paths for every result, a thousand choices, a thousand things that could have happened, and did happen, and might have happened if someone had done or said or been something else.
That was what preoccupied him, whether he was resting or eating or writing or just walking. Sometimes, he tried to place himself in Garrett's position. That was what a good historian did, right? They imagined their subject, delved into their words, read the thoughts beyond, traced feeling and motive and want and need and pain. He had been so busy looking into the past and never-
But that time was gone. The centre would not hold. This could not be changed or mended. History would forge its own path, heedless of those standing by.
He had always known. That was what he would cling to. He had always known that Garrett would never stay. That there is no such thing as forever. Garrett had always been half-wild as a boy, preferring to run through the orchards and splash in the river to sitting in lessons. When Artemus almost-closed his eyes, he could see it now, the dark-haired boy between the trees, bare feet pale in the tangled grass, the sunlight shining green on his upturned face through the shimmering leaves.
There is no such thing as forever. Artemus took the Keeper ring that he had found abandoned in the dormitory and stored it in the locked drawer in his room. Maybe someday, he would give it back.
Gamall, lying in her narrow bed, knew that there is no such thing as narrative convenience. Things do not come around in circles. Things do not last forever. Things are not neat and clear and right. There are no true kings. Swords in stones rust and are forgotten. Ivory towers are so fragile that they…fall. Fast as dreams.
Eternity is not something for humans. Gamall could feel her time coming, could sense the pain and darkness ahead, but she set her mouth and denied it. Pressed her lips together, or she would scream so loudly that the walls would crumble and the windows shatter. There was a children's storybook on her bedside table. She picked it up and, blindly in the night, turned it to the right page. She could not read the words, but she knew that this was the page.
People only live forever in fairytales.