Upon reading Dumbledore's line in Philosopher's Stone, I was intrigued. Did Flamel really want to die? Did he set his things in order? What happened to this alchemist, this ageless king? So I ran to my computer, and wrote this four-page oneshot. Thanks to a couple of friends who helped me find words, and mistakes.
It is I; the ageless king, the overseer of hordes of perfect dawns. The potion drinker, the alchemist, the ever-living man.
My ever-brewing ambrosia has gone bitter, and thus the ebb and flow of potion has ceased, and the bottles now run dry. The bitter drink has banished itself from my ancient body, and my once-youthful face shows it.
I can see the changes in the mirror, and in my wife's angelic face, as each minute, our years finally win the long chase. Our hair greys, turning splendid silver before yielding to the demand of shade, and kissing colour farewell, to dance into white. Our limbs, spry only yesterday, creak with the songs of age. My hands shake like aspen leaves, their manly strength receded. I can only watch helplessly, as years fly by my body, withering the strong tree, to a lightning-struck stump.
My eyes, still as clear as the waters in the fountain of youth, remember the glowing silver beard, and the twinkling blue eyes that told me the winding path that fate had laid down. The path that I trod had once gone on forever, in my naïve eyes, but now I blink, and the wisdom surely borne by my approaching years strikes a meaningful rhapsody. I sense now, the tree that fell to block my way, a snake-and-skull design branded on the silver bark.
The discussion still rings in my ears, whose earlobes now stretch to my shoulders. The voice I once knew reverberates around me, as I remember our work together. My partner in experimentation comes, and talks to me about why our brains must kill the child they had together conceived. I had enough of the eau de vie to keep me upright enough 'to set my things in order', as my former-colleague explained. He holds my hand as I let loose the emotions too manly to be seen by any other than one with galleons of testosterone.
My voice, wavering with a tremor scarce heard before in the deep base, sings the last song for the men in formal robes, as they hasten to scribble notes. They ask me questions a live man should not hear, and my ears wish to die then and there. I lift a hand, veins and bones rising and falling into peaks and valleys of mottled flesh, and hold it to my mouth, to keep my voice from crying out in fear, and anguish of years gone to waste in search.
I can only mourn for my wife, whose auburn locks are so suddenly white. She still ties them the way she did when we were young, giving no care that each day may very well be her last. She stands strong, her spine as supple as a spine her age can be. Only when she thinks I cannot see her does she let the string of vertebrae curl in age and defeat. But still, she wipes her eyes, and carries on for another day of writing, and talking in a voice no longer hers.
We hold each other, to weak to voice the passion we used to sing to the evening skies, fearing, dreading, and welcoming the onslaught of tomorrow. These dawns hold no pleasure for me, the witness of countless perfect dawns. The powers that be paint the skies blood red, and rekindle the oldwives warning, echoing in our ears. Red sky at night, sailor's delight/Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.
Aye, the sailors of many essences we are, but the hardiness one seeks in a true sea-faring being has dropped from our frames. We steel ourselves for the next wave, our arms clutched tight around our rolling bellies, where once we had flung ourselves out to the sea, to taste its welcoming spray.
No longer can I claim myself the ageless king, my kingdom crumbled long ago. The domain I ruled has fallen in upon itself, and no longer does the cauldron stand tall, above the waiting wood. My brain kindles no spark to light the timber, in the long-ago kingdom I held. The iron fist of kingship shakes at the very whisper of what I had, and again the tears come.
I cannot bear to leave these earths, to sleep after so many centuries of revelling in the wonders cast forth by my brethren. I remember faces, and jewels beyond the chips of rock on display today. The offerings of gods sacrificed before my eyes; the taste of sun-kissed beauty, and the thrill of exploration still lingered upon my senses.
My partner, the traitorous turncoat, did not say how weak I would feel, nor how the life I had horded would seek to escape my body by every way known to man. He never once whispered of the men who came to arrange the things I didn't want to hear. Yet perhaps I had looked through the dreaded rose-coloured glasses, and now with my years swirling around me like a great windstorm, the glasses were ripped off, and reality bit true. The fangs were lethal, and they expelled the venom secreted in the ivory grail, the beast laughing at my tortured screams, and curses towards my white, white partner.
I lie in my bed, built of the most solid oak, and feel the warmth of my wife beside me. We lie together in this house we built with out own two hands, wondering if we will be there to see it tomorrow. My mind, still denying the everlasting kiss of time, skirts around the thoughts of the day, and I dream of the time, just beyond my reach, when there would be no more questioning men. My beautiful wife and I would have our time together before He came to take us back to the land where we all began, and where we might begin again.
The blood of the dawn is swabbed across the sky, as the sun burst from its eternal bed to shed light over our part of the world. I rise from the heavy sheets, quilts and skins, leaving my wife to sleep at last. She clutches her pillow fretfully, and whimpers in her vulnerable sleep. I long to bend, and to kiss her fears away, but I fear that should I bend, I shall never bend back to upright. Nourishment passes my lips, and my morning routine quickly falls into the rut I have been in for too many years to count. Soon enough, I pass through my bedchamber again, with fresh robes, ready to resume my spar with the world. I grab for my weapon, old hands greeting the friend I made so long ago. The men I battle with come forwards, wait streaking their young eyes, who have seen so little compared to mine. We parry and lunge, our words sharp weapons in the furious mêlée of remaining.
At the sun's peak, so like my life, near a week ago, the men are gone. Never again in my lifetime shall their briefcase snaps haunt these halls, their robes billow about these corners like bats from a veritable hell. I lay my weapon down, and stroke the worn quill tenderly, laying a comrade-in-arms to rest in the only way I knew how.
"Farewell."
The companion shall ever rest with me, in my tomb, at hand until the world forgets me, and time takes away my monument. At last, my mausoleum shall hold real bones, and tribute will be rendered to the rightful occupant. I blink, and suddenly, the wind of my time steals the last of my naivety, the last drop of youth I had within my body. I sigh, and blink again.
No longer shall I shirk from what is my duty, from newborn to old man. I see from the side of the old, and revel in the coming adventure. Death was no longer the dreaded figure splayed bawdily across the covers of so many texts, and novels. He is the king to whom I have relinquished my kingdom to, the purveyor of the Grail that held so many mesmerized in his loving, and yet, receding ranks. I see the face I long to see most, coming towards me, obviously stunned by the same revelation.
"Perenelle."
"Nicolas."
Our voices are tinged with age, and yet the passion of sixteen underlies the antiquity of it all. Our ancient limbs reach for the other, and we draw the other close, taking solace in the steady beating of the heart. Our lips fumble for one last kiss, and we relinquish the last of ourselves to He who darkens our doorways. The sun climbs to its zenith, and a hand falls gently to our frail, frail shoulders.
He has come.
Time kisses us in turn, and lifts us from our weary shells, cradling us as we had never been cradled. He surges through the roof, after affirming that we needn't trod the world forever, happy with what we had seen, and done. We watch the cities we had seen rise fall into the haze of the atmosphere, winking their happy eyes at us through the smog skirts of their children. No longer do we care of the happenings down there, and we shall not until life beckons us down again, where we shall fall into a body, two spirits into one little body, misty tendrils twining as we eternally become one.
Snow will melt, and rain will fall,
And ever come the rooster call,
He shall forever more bring forth,
The light and dance of the North,
But His most prominent song,
Is that of tick, tock, ding, and dong.
The poem at the end is my own creation, and the He that it refers to is Death. Eau de vie is French for 'water of life', this implying the Elixir. I'd like to know what you thing about this piece, so please click on that little 'Go' button, and tell me all about it!