"Where is it?" Jasmine hissed, as she rummaged through the endless pile of papers, books, and assorted oddities that Doom kept on his desk. She had never spent much time in her father's room, and she had been surprised by how easily he had handed her his keys. They had been in a meeting in the library, when Doom realized he had forgotten his pen. Marilen kept a drawer full of writing utensils, but Doom, bound as he was to his strange paranoias, always insisted on using his own. How he had left it behind, Jasmine did not know.
Marilen had taken over Josef's title the month prior, and had called upon Lief and Doom to review her early days as librarian, and to present some of her ideas for change. Jasmine had gone along to the meeting to support her friend in her endeavours, but quickly tired of the conversation, of which she could offer nothing. So, when Doom had risen to return to his room, she had offered to go in his stead.
She sighed and stepped away from the desk. She had found nothing, and Doom had only one pen; stylized and beautiful. Doom inhabited one of the palace's smallest bedrooms, which was appropriate, as he seemingly never used it. The desk was lively in its disorder, but the only other furnishings were a wooden chair, a small wardrobe and a tightly-made bed. Jasmine had once overheard two palace guards jokingly wonder if Doom indeed slept at all. She had not been meant to overhear, and so she had pretended she had not. Still, she could not blame the guards for their jests.
"Ha!" She finally exclaimed, spotting the pen's shining silver cap on Doom's bed spread. She crossed the room and snatched up her prize. She tucked it into her pocket, and was about to return to the library, when something else caught her eye. A book lay at the end of the bed, near where the pen had been. It bore a battered black cover, and was thicker than many of the others she had sorted through. It stood out sorely on the plain bed. Books hardly ever appealed to her, but this one called to her. The spine crackled like a fire when she opened it. It was not as thick as she had initially thought: the pages were swollen with water damage from long ago. The words were written, she realized with some surprise, in Doom's strange and tell-tale hand. She very rarely saw his writing laid bare like it was, without a code or a trick to shield the true intentions of his words.
She flipped through the early pages quickly. They were stiff and difficult to turn; sometimes sticking together. Reading was not where her strengths lay, and many of the words were blurred with stains and age, so she caught only bits as she scanned the pages.
—thought that I was alone, but I was mistaken. There are many who wish to join—
—king is lost to the seduction of darkness. I must tell no—
—boy is of strong will, and yet he is delicate. I fear the truth will destroy—
—three continue to be of interest, but they draw too many eyes. I do not believe they can survive—
—time has come.
It was like a story Doom had written about himself, she thought. Not quite a history, but an account of his own life as he lived it, beginning some time before the Resistance formed. He had recorded his thoughts into a book. What a strange thing to do. Jasmine peered again at the ominous final sentence. It was written at the top of the page, and no other marks had been made on the sheet. Frowning, she flipped through the next few pages, but Doom had left them blank. She was about to close the book, when she found another entry towards the middle. The page was blank, except for one sentence scrawled on the centre.
It is time to start anew.
She turned the page. The writing had started up again. She flipped back. Doom, it seemed, had used paper as a barricade to separate the most recent era of his life with the one that had come before. The first half of the book was written mostly in short sentences and hastily added dates, the second half was filled with sprawling paragraphs. To her delight, she found that her mother's name made frequent appearances. Jasmine stared at the words, sounding them out slowly in her mind and using her finger to trace the text. Keeping track of the word placement helped them make sense in her head. There were some words she could not read, but she could guess their meaning well enough. She picked one of the earlier passages and began to work through it.
There is not a day that goes by where I do not think of you. How could I have ever forgotten you, Anna? I must make up for all those lost moments. It is good for me, I believe, to think of you. It helps; you ground me now as you did then. But it is hard. Remembering your death hurt like I had lost you twice over. But even in my darkest moments, I have the memory of your smile. A smile that I would kill to see again, though I know that I cannot even do that. I failed you, did I not? I have failed you both.
Her eyes burned. Life in the Forests with her family had been hard, but so filled with love and laughter that it had rarely seemed to matter at all. Looking back at what was lost hurt like a blow from a fist. A fat tear dropped onto the page, blurring the last few words of the paragraph.
But you remember, dear heart, how clever Jasmine was. You remember those hours we would spend devising riddles and word games, and how she would solve them faster than we could think them up. Nothing has changed. She is remarkably bright, and so brave. This is not the life that we had hoped for her, but you would not believe how well she is made for it. Truly, we cannot take credit for the person she has become. But you would be proud— so proud— as I am. You would love her, as I do.
Jasmine shut the book quickly, and sat on the edge of Doom's pristine bed. Doom had never spoken like that to her, and she did not know how she felt about his words. She swiped a knuckle across her wet eyes.
"A true annal is kept as the event occurs, not afterward," Josef had once mournfully informed her, long months before his death. "Sadly, so much of our recent history is unaccounted for. I fear that the Deltoran Annals will never be what they could."
Jasmine had not particularly cared to be involved in such a conversation, and so had not paid much attention to Josef's woes. But was that not what the first part of Doom's book had done? As she held Doom's book in her hands— stories about a man who had great influence on two kings and aided in initiating a new Deltoran era— she wondered if any of Josef's fears would have quelled, had he read it. As painful as it would be to read, it was an important text. The Annals would be more meaningful for it. Jasmine tucked the book under her arm and made sure that all three of Doom's locks were in place before she went back to the library.
When Jasmine returned, Marilen and Doom were in deep conversation. Lief looked up with a grin as she shut the door behind her. His face, changed as it was by burden and scars, was so beautiful and bright that Jasmine forgot her task for a moment. But even in my darkest moments, I have the memory of your smile. She sat beside him and took his hand. Filli, who had remained nestled lazily into Lief's lap, chattered a brief hello and returned to his nap.
"Were you lost?" Lief teased quietly, as she took a seat beside him. Jasmine took his hand and gave it two tight squeezes and he bumped his shoulder against hers. Doom had used such pretty words to write about her mother, and she hoped that she would one day learn express her love in a similar manner.
She rested the book on her knees. Marilen caught her eye and smiled, but did not interrupt Doom as he reviewed a catalogue of texts aloud. Jasmine pulled her hand free from Lief's and rolled the pen across the table, and he tapped twice with his fingers as he read; a sort of recognition. When he had removed the cap, she slid the book over. He looked down it for a moment, as if not really seeing it before his eyes. When he looked back up, his face terribly pale. Jasmine drew back, alarmed.
"Where did you get that?" His face was stone, but his eyes were dark and dangerous.
"It was on your bed," she said, immediately defensive. "You should get a second pen, Doom, I am sure that—"
"Did you read it?" He interrupted. His knuckles were white as he gripped the book.
Jasmine hesitated. Something was wrong. "Parts of it," she said finally.
"Congratulations on your continued successes, Marilen," Doom said tightly, and rose to his feet. Marilen twitched, startled by the abrupt action. Some of the colour had returned to Doom's face, but his lips were a tense line on his face. "I have business elsewhere."
He turned and left the library. Jasmine watched him go."I have upset him," she said with a touch of wonder. She and Doom had had a quiet understanding for nearly three years, and she seemed to have damaged it somehow.
"Go to him, Jasmine," Marilen insisted with a gentle urgency. She turned to Lief, who said nothing, though his face glowed with warmth and love.
Hesitantly, Jasmine got up followed her father. He was a fast walker, and she had to move quickly to catch him. The hall was empty, and he must have heard her footsteps, yet he did not stop.
"Doom!" She called. She darted in front of him, forcing him to halt. He made a sound of annoyance and turned away, leaning one hand against the wall.
She was embarrassed, although she could not say why. And, anyway, why should she be? She had done nothing wrong. "I wanted to help," she hissed fiercely, to cover her odd sense of shame. "It is just a book."
"It is not," Doom did not raise his voice, but he spoke with a terrible harshness.
"I do not understand," Jasmine's words were laced with desperation. The idea of hurting someone she loved without knowing how was frightening.
Doom took his hand from the wall, and ran his fingers roughly through his hair. "It… it is my diary. Diaries are private, they are not meant to be read. You had no right to."
"It is a book," she repeated stubbornly.
"No," he gave Jasmine a curious look. "You have never heard of diaries?"
"I have not," she was still trying to understand. "Do you always write your thoughts down?"
"No. Endon kept a journal, when we were boys, and I always dismissed it as a waste of time," Some of his anger began to abate, and he shook his head with a wry smile. "After the Shadowlands, I used it like a tool: I could not forget something if I wrote it down."
She thought of Doom after his escape, a stranger in his own body, desperate to have something to call his own. "Why are you still writing in it?"
He was silent for a long moment. "I am keeping my memories are safe."
"You have just told me things that you never have," Jasmine said slowly. "This is different from the diary?"
"Yes," he told her firmly. "I am choosing to tell you this."
Jasmine stepped back. She remembered Doom's face after Dain's betrayal; bloody, and twisted with anguish as he called out her name in the Forge. "And you write in the diary now, so that you will never forget anything," something unpleasant occurred to her. "Do you mean you would not want to?"
He looked at her with narrowed eyes, uncomprehending.
Jasmine lifted her chin high, and pretended her heart was not pounding. "Would it not be easier if you never remembered who you were? If you had truly forgotten about Mamma, and about me?"
"No," Doom's voice was level, but Jasmine could hear the intention behind it. "I would rather die."
There was no passion in his voice; there was no need for it. He spoke a simple truth. She had known it in her heart, but it was good to hear him say it.
"I am sorry," she told him truthfully, although apologies tasted bitter and strange on her tongue. "I thought it should be in the library."
"You did not know," he said firmly. Apologies and forgiveness were not his way, either.
The words tumbled from her lips before she could stop them. "You are wrong; you did not fail her," she said, twisting her hands together awkwardly. "And you did not fail me."
He stared at her for a long time, his face almost infuriatingly blank. "I do not always believe that," he told her finally. "But I am trying to learn."
She nodded; it was good enough, for the moment. "You should go back to Marilen. She values your opinion, and you were not finished."
Doom looked back towards the library. "Will you come?"
"I am sure I have other matters to attend to," she said loftily, searching her brain for an excuse that would not force her to spend any more of the day slouched in the library.
"Surely," he mocked her without malice, and Jasmine ducked her head to hide her smile.
Doom pocketed his diary. "If you ever have questions for me, all you must do is ask them."
"But will you give me answers if I do?"
He raised his eyebrows. "It depends on what they are."
A fair trade, Jasmine watched as her father turned back towards the library. She walked towards the stairs, suddenly desperate to be outside. She mostly understood Doom's desire to keep his writing private, but one of the sentences she had stolen from him still fluttered around her mind.
But you would be proud— so proud— as I am. You would love her, as I do.
Notes: Thanks for reading! This is based on a prompt from dragonloverdoran on Tumblr, who requested Jasmine reading Doom's diary without knowing it's forbidden.