"Of Anniversary Toast"
by: Karasu (karasumouri@earthlink.net)
Rating: G easily
Content: somewhat sad, m/m pairing, 1st person (Xas) POV
Disclaimers: Elizabeth Knox's lovely story The Vintner's Luck is hers and hers alone. I'm merely a new dedicated fan interested in expanding on some of Xas' character. I can only hope to later capture a style that she does so well in her writing...
Author's notes: I finished the book tonight around midnight due to forgetfullness and not taking my pain killers/sleeping pills so I could not sleep... In all of two sittings on two different nights I was able to read the entire book and the day in between those readings was when I purchased the book for my own copy. It's a wonderful story filled with so many things... and to think I found it by pure chance and luck when I was skimming titles at the library. Thank the gods I was breezing through some titles by Knowles'. ^_^ Ahem, well anyway, this short tale is in the form of a sort of letter written by Xas nearly two centuries after his first meeting with Sobran.
September 23/24, 2001
Immortality is such a curse, especially when you feel love... love for someone mortal. Faith in anything has fled from me, was gone more than a century ago. Now I return to visit old sites so changed from so very long ago. Things have been torn down, burnt down, blown away, rebuilt, and so much more. Who would have known how much the world could change?
I guess this really isn't all that long of time that has passed, when you really stop to think on it, but your mortality rubbed off on me and I feel like I've just been a soul continually reborn and sent to Earth to lead a new life, another life, no matter how painful the old memories are.
Don't be upset with me, because I have never been one to let the bad overrun the good. I suppose that's one of my innate charms. There were so many times we shared happiness, whether it was for albeit a brief moment, or perhaps a month full of memories and warmth. Those memories are what have kept me warm on shelter-less nights through the decades, and all the lonely and hateful, painful memories are ones I pull out to scream and torture myself again when I'm so angry, too angry, and feel so tired....
I doubt you have even an inkling of how things have changed, of the "advanements" that came from your time to now. It's saddening and amusing, both at once, to look over human history. It makes the centuries seem even longer than they have been. From horse, to carriage, to boat, to bike, to train, to car, to plane, to rocket...
I still have moments when I wake in a coldsweat and attempt to move my wings up for shealter - only to find they aren't there. I don't really know if they'll ever return. Nothing like this has ever happened, no angels have had their wings amputated by Luciefer before.
Strange, such a strange one I am... and yet I still am not unique. No, no... sadly I'm only a copy. Oh yes, that's something to address as well. This is the age of cloning. Clone this and that, inanimate and animate... animals, technology, humans... Everyone striving to be the same, act the same, wear the trendy clothes to be in style, figure out what the "in-crowd" is saying...
With all I've seen since "the signing" I can't begin to even think of God as to having the true guidence of these lives. He is supposed to create each one differently, and instead everything is merging and tearing as similarities bring people closer and differences push each other away. It's a nightmare, more so than any I've lived in for centuries. They call a period many ages ago the "Dark Ages" but it seems to me we're all in the dark right now.
There's the homeless and family-less and food-less people all over the place with hardly anyone to help. It's depressing, and there is not too much in my power that I can do. I try my best, helping one to three people at a time and move on. I'm not always successful, I never really expect to be, but I need to try, I must try, because it is in my nature; and, I know, I cannot forever mourn my loss of you. I knew it was coming, I always had, but still I was a fool and put the thought to the back of my mind. I always thought there would be some happy ending, somehow we'd make it and our lives would turn into the ultimate, happy love story.
But that's not real life.
I have nothing more to say, I'm too worn out and tired on this night. It's our anniversary... 190 years since our first meeting. Here's to us...cheers.
~Fin~
ANs: I... dunno. It's bittersweet, how I wanted it. I ended up with two endings so read my second option below. It explains the actions following the writing of the above letter.
Even though I turned rather desperate as the book progressed - rather sad and disappointed that Sobran and Xas weren't nearly together as much as I would have liked - I can't let things turn out too happily. The characters all fascinated me, and I would like to, in the near future, work with them within fanfictions... The girl once only doing manga and anime fanfics is turning towards fanfics based on books - the way I used to write stories in, oh, 1st through 4th grade.... ^^;;
(before reading, omit last sentence of letter because it's said aloud here.)
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He folded the letter and held it over the candle flame before him and watched the fire lick up along the sides of the paper, curling and staining the edges. Blank eyes watched on as his fingers let go and the last of the letter turned to ash. Bowing his head briefly, he had a fleeting hope that it would appear where it belonged so that /he/ could read it. He lifted the fragile wine glass filled with a small amount of the last Jodeau wine of the 1800s and murmured so quietly it was nearly only a thought:
"Here's to us... cheers."
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This second ending came as an afterthought because I thought I ought to explain that Xas was not just thinking or writing/speaking to himself... He was writing to Sobran. Recall that he said everything appears in heaven, the duplicates at least. So, this letter was formed and "sent" by way of burning.
Following day notes: I love to write and talk via writing, lol, so pardon me... I'm now interested in creating a broader story, perhaps include a ressurection or some other wordly meeting... something to toss Sobran and Xas together again and get a complicated plot going...... ;;^^