You Know the Truth
(the everything is expanded remix) - remix of "Truth" by lirillith
Geddoe didn't talk much; when he did he didn't waste his breath. "You can't avoid the truth forever," he just said, picking up this conversation where he had left it hanging three days before when Sebastian had come bustling in with an enormous cake baked by Cecile, Muto, and Martha in celebration of Hugo's sixteenth birthday. Hugo had been surprised and probably as relieved as Thomas to turn away from such a heavy topic. Chris, on the other hand, had felt the unfinished discussion hanging on her shoulders like an iron shawl. Even if Geddoe said nothing more on the subject, just the circumstance of one of their number remembering it had been left unfinished was satisfying to her.
Geddoe stepped up to the fence to lean on it alongside her. "You'll stay young. Everyone else will age. The gatherings like this will always remind you. That's why some people in our state start deciding not to come."
Chris frowned. The horses rushed by. The race- a mere single lap speed challenge- was over in an instant. A few yards to their right, far enough away to be out of earshot, Dios scowled and threw his tickets to the ground and Sasarai somehow convinced him to pick them back up.
His words were like rocks thrown into the silent pool of her heart. They echoed out in rings of ripples long after they had been spoken. In their weight, they reminded Chris of her father's words. The two men were not simply alike; they were more complimentary, Chris thought. If she translated that into the terms of those near to her, she could see that complements made for close friends (it didn't matter whether Borus would say so, his actions spoke loud enough to make up for any lack of words). ...Geddoe had been robbed of his old ones by time and circumstance. Was he as close to the colleagues he kept now as those who had come before? How long did one have to live before one tired of the transience of friendship- even associations that stretched on nearly life-long for the less supernaturally youthful parties- and stopped trying? Giving it serious consideration sent a cold shiver across her skin. "Never," Chris told herself. She wouldn't worry about what others did- minding her own behavior might prove a heavy enough task.
"...But you're strong," Geddoe added at last, not because of the empty air between them, but because he felt it was worth it to say (silence hung easily on him). "One way or another you'll handle it."
"I appreciate your vote of confidence."
He mumbled something that might have been a "You're welcome," and meandered away from the fence. "Sooner or later, I'll see you around," he concluded.
"Later" proved more accurate than "sooner."
"You were right," Chris started as soon as the ordinary pleasantries of meeting had passed her lips.
"Hmm," Geddoe answered. It wasn't a "yes" or a "no," but Chris had no doubt that he knew what she was referring to. He wasn't going to make a big deal out of it either. She appreciated that part too.
Hugo might have asked, "What happened?" Sasarai would have inquired, "Did this revelation hit you all at once or did it come to your attention gradually?" Geddoe didn't say anything else, but as the bartender came back with their drinks in hand, Geddoe stopped Chris from paying and placed his own money on the table. Whether or not to tell had been Chris' decision- she had told, in a way. How much to tell was also her decision.
"It happened quite recently," she began, her serious mouth twisting into a frown that surely looked as unpleasant as it felt. "...For certain values of recently," she corrected herself. She sipped the ale and found its flavor bitter and lacking. She wanted it bitter and strong.
Geddoe apparently agreed. "Next time we get together to drink, we're picking a different place."
"Perhaps next time, you should just agree to come back to my place for tea instead," Chris didn't quite mean to quip.
"Maybe next time I will," the mercenary grunted. "The company will be the same, the drinks will be better and cheaper- it should more than balance out any awkwardness I would feel over being in Wyatt's pretty little Zexen dream house."
"I'm not certain it will make you feel any better, but it's my house now. If you've never seen the inside before, then you'll have no way of knowing what touches to think of as mine and which to see as my father's."
She had a point. Geddoe mildly agreed with this as well. They sipped their ale and Chris began to explain. "It happened about six months ago. We were working with some of the younger knights and the squires. One of the feistier squires- Alexander- he's something of a freckle-faced country boy, well, he asked Borus if they might spar a bit for his training. ...Well, the short of it is, he disarmed Borus, something no squire has managed in all his days of knighthood. There was a tiny part of me that was proud, but it was immediately eclipsed by the inevitable truth of Borus' naturally increasing age and diminishing strength. Yes, Alexander has been practicing; someday he'll be an excellent knight, but... It wasn't all Alexander. It was mainly Borus. He's... Well, he can't be what he used to be."
"Alexander is your squire?"
He had guessed correctly. "Yes, he is. My first in a while. After I lost Alyssa, I went without for some time. They all seemed too young, too fragile. ...It turns out that they aren't any younger. Not than Louis was; not than I was during my own time with Galahad... It's us who are getting old."
Geddoe nodded. What man or woman gifted with endless youth had not endured a similar experience? "You're taking it about as well as could be expected. ...How about your men?"
"I don't know about Roland, but as an elf, I suppose he always felt differently about the passage of time than we humans. Leo's retired already, but since he has children, he could never end up as disconnected from the reality of change. I might not know exactly what the others think about my situation, but it seems like Percival, Borus, and Salome are all feeling their age to a greater or lesser degree. I had to plans to dine with them the night that Alexander beat Borus, so I had a chance to hear their thoughts while the topic was fresh in everyone's minds.
"You remember how Percival can be, right? He tends to use humor to deal with things. ...There were a lot of jokes about age and retiring that evening. Or, it might be more accurate to say I thought they were jokes. Percival was serious."
Chris took a long swig of her ale. Yes, she decided, tea probably would have been better for this. She didn't have to say how hard the truth had hit her that night for Geddoe to understand from her body language and the look on her face. She gave the subject a subtle shift: "Are all your people still with you? The ones from the time of the war?"
"We're all in touch. Ace works pushing paper in the Mercenary Liaison Office. Joker's retired. The mercenary life is hard on most people's bodies."
"You've had less turnover in your unit than others have," she realized. "It's because you inspire such loyalty in your men and women."
He imagined the same was true of her. "That, and I don't take anyone stupid enough to get themselves killed too easily. If you don't chose carefully when it comes to the young Third Class stragglers looking for a different sort of life of servitude, you end up with little more than overgrown kids with weapons. They've been trained to cook or clean in Harmonian houses. They don't all realize what the mercenary life will be like. ...Not all of them can learn to take it."
"Some of the young men and women who want to become knights can't handle it either, but as squires, I suppose they have something of a trial period to see how things will work out. During peace time, whether they manage to stick it out or not, they're unlikely to leave much worse for the wear." Knighthood was such a nationally exalted path, it was no wonder that some would venture into it, pushed by their parents or their peers or the exaggeratedly glorious stories that were spread throughout Zexen about its knights (part good-natured myth and part cynical propaganda and all too many that painted her as some shining, beautiful paragon of heroism).
She considered what he had said a while longer. She couldn't claim to know much about life within the variations striations of Harmonia's rigid society (the Harmonian she was best acquainted with might have spoken about such things if she had asked, but such questions rarely passed through her mind when she was with him; Sasarai might speak sincerely in person, but cautious of the possibility of censors, any missives that passed through official channels towed the party line), but she could see that the reasons for going into the mercenary business were rarely the same. "You know from experience," she surmised.
"I lost one in the mountains on my way here. ...I must finally be getting old myself, seeing that I was soft enough to give in to those big brown eyes after decades of better choosing."
"I'm sorry."
"I can give you some belated good news to make up for it. Aila and Jacques got married."
"Oh," Chris let out a tiny appreciative gasp, "How long ago?"
"...Twenty-two years."
Well, that said it all. "We need to meet more often."
The dipping sun and the noise of the nearby ocean beckoned more than remaining in the gradually filling tavern ever would. Geddoe folded his arms behind his back at they walked. "So, your men. Did any of them retire yet?'
"Salome a while back- from active military duty at least, he's still keeping himself occupied with clerical work for the knighthood, and other things. He's working on a set of historical texts.
"Percival did too, more recently. He's marginally less stubborn than Borus."
"I thought I remembered something like that."
"After the incident with Alexander, I don't believe Borus wants to step down without giving one last good showing for himself. ...Not that he needs to do any such thing," Chris went on, "He's done plenty already- for me, for his colleagues, for the sake of his good name in the historical record..." She let out a light sigh. The salt in the air was a refreshing smell. People aged, people changed. The land eroded, but the ocean remained basically the same. "So I still have Roland, Borus, and Louis in the active ranks with me. For now."
Geddoe let out a small grunt of thinking or agreement.
"For you, it's Queen, Jacques, and Aila? And what are they getting up to while you're here with me?"
"They're out on the wharf, enjoying some free time. I've got another one too, Diamond. He sort of fills that necessary space on the team of 'someone to bicker with Queen.' You know how that is."
There- for a second, Chris was certain she had seen the tiniest flicker of a smile creep across his face. Not that you would expect many during wartime, which was their chief period of acquaintance with each other, but she wasn't sure she had ever seen Geddoe smile.
"Queen's not going to retire until she can't get up off her seat in our favorite bar to follow me anymore."
"Maybe you have to worry about her then, but I think you probably appreciate that."
They paused and the rest of the flowing movement of the ocean-side avenue was forced to continue its flow around them. "She's still spry enough. ...Not that I've ever wanted anyone to sacrifice themselves for me."
"You tell me that, but I think the two of you have an understanding. With true friendship, it's never a sacrifice."
And that time, Geddoe did smile, long enough for her to be sure of it (even if it was barely a smile at all by the standards of most of the people Chris spent her days with). She was prepared for the changes she saw in his remaining crew when she encountered them. They were familiar in nature, even if their faces were not the same. She promised to stay in touch ("It should be a pleasure, not a hardship, to manage to write to you at least once a year").
The meeting left her lightened and she went home happy-
until the next morning, when her namesake, Chris Keeferson, greeted her with the news that his first child - Louis' first grandchild- had been born. She gave him her congratulations and promised to come see the girl soon; beneath her calm surface, feelings of displacement from her proper age and time swirled anew.