This Is When We Say Goodbye
A Stardust fanfiction
At first, Yvaine didn't even notice her husband was getting, as the mortals would put it, old.
The time did not seem – or at least it did not feel – so far along as that. His hair was only going grey, not white, and there were many men with less taxing offices than Tristran of Stormhold held whose formerly dark heads began to take on a salt-and-pepper appearance. Nothing worthy of alarm. He looked much the same to her – to the loving, ever-bright-blue eyes of his doting, teasing wife – as he ever had (they do say love is blind).
There were small worries now and again, of course. He had difficultly with the main grand staircase and elected to use it no longer unless there was somebody – some kindly servant or else Yvaine herself – to help him up it. She'd been a little concerned for him then. Only she attributed it, largely, to an old battle injury of his which was known to act up from time to time when the weather took a damp turn.
Somewhere along the way Tristran started getting confused and rather easily tired, and he left most Matters of State in his wife's hands. She was used to looking after such things whenever he was detained – as he often was by what he called 'the world' – and scarcely battled an eye.
Yvaine had only felt true alarm when Tristran, well meaning enough, whispered, a touch hoarsely, to her one evening that he would like some parchments written out and stamped officially so that she could be the Lady of Stormhold when he was no more.
"I don't suppose anybody would object, but I'd rest easier if it was official," he said, choking back a dry cough that hadn't gone away as quickly as his doctors would have liked. "Stamped and signed. And of course you know where I keep the topaz and can take it out if there's any–"
She was stunned. "But you're fine. That's such a long, long way off."
He gave her a sad smile that made her yank some of the covers in their bed more onto her own side and mutter that he was a complete dunderhead and clodpole.
Tristran had then reached over and touched her shoulder. "Couldn't you just do it to make me feel better? Since we could never have any children, I've always known it would be you who'd inherit, but I just don't want any trouble for you when it happens – I love you."
"I love you, too," she'd whispered, muffedly. "I'll arrange for all that tomorrow."
The following morning, Tristran was glad she followed through, especially as he sheepishly confessed he didn't remember discussing it with her. Things were getting muddled for him. It was only made more tricky for his aging mind to keep things straight when Yvaine looked as young and golden-haired as ever. He looked to his wife for guidance and the woman he saw – his beautiful star – could have been from any year in his life he'd lived with her. They might only just have arrived at the gates of Stormhold in vagabond clothing with a lot to sort out yesterday, from her appearance. The mirror told him another story. It had been a very, very long time since then indeed.
With the confusion came spurts of anger. He wasn't ready to go, no more than she was ready to lose him, and he disliked thinking that all their adventures and happiness together were already behind them. Some nights Yvaine would go straight to her own suite of rooms, the one with the broken roof open to the glaring sky, in hopes of his getting better rest; he hated the cold and lonely and impotent feeling her extended absence left in his.
He asked once – very timidly, afraid of the answer – if she still found him attractive. After all, he looked more like her grandfather than her husband nowadays.
"Come here," had been her only words as she'd taken him by the hand and guided him slowly to her suite, even though it was raining, where they made love for the last time, very gently.
They spent much of the night afterwards lying beside each other, soaked to the bone, drying slowly and ineffectively in the starlight.
For a while longer after that, with only a few setbacks, they were happy.
Tristran even resumed some of the duties he'd relinquished to Yvaine for a time.
Then came the day Tristran lost his appetite.
He didn't eat, and so he grew weak, and so his energy drained until his – quite wrinkled, though no one could say when it had gotten so – face was nearly as grey as his hair.
Yvaine managed to coax a few bites of fruit into his mouth, knowing that – even though she didn't need food – her husband would not last very long forgoing it entirely.
But with a sad shake of his head, he declined any further offers to feed him.
Her fingers shook. The little gold, ruby-studded spoon slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a clang and a clatter.
He took her soft hands in his aged, gnarled ones, looked at her with weary pity, and whispered, "I'm sorry, Yvaine. I'm so sorry."
He didn't have to say he tried to hold on longer, just a little longer, for her sake, nor did he have to say that he loved her. Both of these she knew already and the look he gave her only reaffirmed this prior knowledge.
She wiped the sticky juice from the corners of his mouth where it had pooled and congealed. "It's all right," she murmured, though it wasn't – not at all.
A couple days more and he was completely bed-ridden.
The last thing he was able to say with any coherency was "I'm very cold."
Yvaine crawled into the big bed beside him and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder, her golden hair loose and glowing.
His hand found hers and squeezed gently. He tried to stroke her beautiful hair, but the movement exhausted him and he soon had to give it up.
Yvaine had seen stars die before – seen them expand after what felt like forever, a very good long life indeed, much longer than mortals enjoyed. She had seen wounded men dragged off battlefields whose wounds got infected; it was terrible, the way they died, but this was somehow worse. She hadn't even seen Tristran's mother, the Lady Una, die of old age; Tristran had shielded her from that, looking after his mother himself in a suite of rooms the lady had requested nobody else enter. She was a good soul, Lady Una, but rather vain – she wanted as few people to see her like that as possible. Had her brothers lived, rather than having all murdered each other (well, nearly), she wouldn't have even permitted them. And Yvaine's ageless beauty reminded her of her own loss; it stung her pride a little too much to see her unchanging daughter-in-law.
Losing Tristran was something Yvaine felt she should have been prepared for, certainly had had time to prepare for, yet was not.
This was when they said goodbye. And she would have given anything – anything – to postpone it.
"Please don't go," she whispered; "stay with me."
But he couldn't. So he didn't.
The transparent, hooded figure of death materialized by the bed. Yvaine lifted her head, though she still clutched him, and watched through her tears and hiccup-ridden sobs as Death whispered her dark secret into her husband's ear, the ear of the eighty-second Lord of Stormhold, poised to become his first and last mistress, the one who would take him away forever.
He nodded his old grey head and was no more.
Everyone knew he would not be like his uncles; he would haunt nobody. He was quits from the world entirely. Tristran did not do things by halves.
It took hours for the well-meaning servants to pry Yvaine away from the body so they could ready it to be entombed within the hall of ancestors, where it would lie for evermore.
When they did finally succeed in taking him, Yvaine sat beside the impression the body left in the mattress, and stared down at it – her light dim – a long, long while.
"Goodbye, Tristran."
A/N: Well that was a downer, I know, but I always felt that little mention of Tristran's death at the end of Stardust was too short and I lengthened it a little here.
Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed due to limited internet. Thanks for understanding.