Author's Note- One thing I was convinced of, both during the book and the movie, that Molly and Schemdrick are in love. Of course, this is coming from a hopeless romantic who tries to see the romantic plot in everything, but oh well. But that's not the only reason why I wrote this. I wrote this because A) Molly and Schmendrick are my favorite characters B) There are not enough TLU fics on the web, and of those, I've only found one other with Schmendrick and Molly as the main characters (if you know of any more, tell me please) C) Because I felt like it.
Setting Notes- This is set not too long after TLU. I am not attempting to imitate Beagle's style in any manner mostly because the time when I last read the book was too long ago and also because I prefer using my own style. If they happen to overlap, so be it.
There was a time when I saw the world in terms of butterflies and stardust. When a kiss was fiery embers upon me and I would enjoy every moment in both reality and dreams and wake up unashamed. There was a time when my hair was silk and home was near and if tomorrow came it was but another day blushed was the rosy promise of hope. It was a time of dreams that grew opal-shaded wings and horns like unicorns and Pegasi. But it was also the time of him. Him with his sandy hair and chivalrous words, telling tales of nobility and adventure. Belief came, but more because I dared dream that it would come than anything else. In a girl's romantic age, she'd believe that the sun was up-side-down and inside-out spinning through a soup of ink.
He'd call me names like "Moll, my doll" and "Angel Molly", and belief came because I was a young fool. Only when I became well-read did I realize he quoted everything. Every single honey, sugar-coated, pretty, painted word he told me was quoted. And it was lies too, or at least from my view.
If he loved me, he knew nothing of the sugar-sweet sensation, not that I, myself, have ever had the chance to feel it. I cooked for him, I slept with him, and sometimes, rarely, I'd talk to him. But I felt like I was cooking for, sleeping with, and talking to a void, a ghost, a black hole. A shapeless shape of nothing. I was slipping. He knew I was slipping. So he clung to me with all his might. He clung to me with sweet words. He clung to me with violence. He clung to me with all his might. But it would have taken magic to hold me. I was a bird, every moment, plotting her escape and he was the shadow of a might-have-been Robin Hood clinging to his prayer of a Maid Marion with all the strength in him.
But Captain Cully is a fragment of another road long ago traveled and abandoned. I can still feel his piercing fiery touches so contrary to his sweetened words every time the cursed memories come to me. The chill of the wind brings me to the here and now.
"Tabitha! Close that there damn window! Woman! Do ya want us all to catch a death a chill?" A shrill innkeeper voice interrupts, as a young girl, so sad faced for one her age, walks from out of the shadows and to the window from which the fall air rises and whirls and whistles like howling ghosts and fragments of past screams and moans and beasts with red eyes that chase silver-snow unicorns to a sea-green sea foam place of rest. I know the look well-I wore it once. Seeing her, as she slinks back to the shadows of the inn, the one corner that she believes is and forever will remain her place, I wonder how many more Molly Grues are there in the world, living with a shadow of what could be with only fragments of romance that blossom in their heads from time to time when they get too lonely.
The fireplace is my companion now as I sit nearby, its liquid gold flames heating my body to my contentment as I watch him. He drinks his ale and does parlor tricks to pay and tells tales for our supper and board. I want to shout at him for being a ninny and getting drunk when I'm sure this inn keeper is willing to pick every last cent out of our pockets as soon as he's passed out and my head turns the other way, but I stop myself.
"And now, my good men, I tell you a tale of true magic. Magic beyond parlor tricks and illusions. The magic of unicorns and wizards and love. I give you the tale of the last unicorn in all the world"
Of course, it's all about the magic, Schmendrick, you vain, bubble-headed buffoon, all about the magic.
"A unicorn lived in a lilac wood and she lived all alone..."
And she was the last unicorn, the one that came to me. Came to me when I had lost my faith in men and love. Thought that good men and true love were but dreams of those who wanted to console themselves for their miserable lives. But unicorns are supposed to come when time is measured in kisses and the world is seen in terms of butterflies and stardust. So why? What was the point in coming to me then when I was trampled by the realities of life? When I beyond the need...the capacity...the...the...prayer of love? Why? And then, why leave me like every good thing that has come into my life?
Sometimes, instead of Cully, I see an ivory coat and a main like the breeze and a horn like the scepter of a deity running free. I see a maiden in a true love that I can never have, and then loosing it for immortality and the freedom of the stars. More dazzling, beautiful visions, and therefore more brief, more haunting, leaving me with more longing for the past.
And I wonder, why? Why?
Traveling with him, Schmendrick, I mean, I have learned much of the art of magic. I can't perform any spells, of course, but I am a bit knowledgeable in the subject at least. But magic is an art of spirits and divinities that no one can truly understand unless they have experienced it. Perhaps what has struck me is that despite what fiction may say, no magic has ever been strong enough to create a love potion. When I asked him why, and well, I don't suppose I have seen him ever look so serious, since...since the unicorn, he raised an eyebrow and told me, "Until we can understand the secrets of the heart, we cannot create a force strong enough to play with it."
As Schmendrick finishes his all too familiar tale, another traveler at the inn reaches into a silk, violet sack and pulls out a funny pipe made of carved wood inlaid with gold leafing in patterns of fay and leaves and unicorn horns. Lifting the splendid object gently to his lips, he pipes out a song for all to hear. Clear, crystal, yet wild and bold music fills the air and delights the senses, calling me to my feet, begging me to dance.
He sits down beside me, looking strait ahead, but not to anywhere in particular except perhaps an unknown corner of his mind.
We've traveled together, shared our food, and what little we have and yet we know so little what's inside the other. We don't know the secrets of the other's heart. That is why the unicorn was wrong. There will never be another time of butterflies and stardust. Another time of kisses and passion and belief, most importantly belief, in that sugar emotion known as love. There will never be any love potions weaved with magic spells. Unless he knows. Unless he truly knew why I was so critical and grouchy, why I was so afraid that I was wrong. Unless he knew the impossible. Unless...
I stand, too afraid to think anymore with him beside me. With cautious steps I begin to walk away, until...
"Molly"
"What is it?"
"Look at me."
"What?"
"Look at me, you crazy woman! Look at me!" his voice is not harsh, but firm, yet gentle in it's own manner.
I spin around and realize how long it's truly been since I've looked at him like this. A tall, bony magician with some true magic lurking there inside him, I suppose, if you were to look long enough. He's looking at me, I know, but what he sees, is a mystery. I'm none too pretty, plain, just regular old Molly.
And he smiles! That too tall, too skinny excuse for a wizard smiles that smug little smile of his because he knows he has done the impossible! He has created a love potion all right, one more powerful than magic could create: the potent potion of a single look. Oh he knows he' s done it too, as he rises and steps toward me and kisses me once, twice, as if it was a perfectly everyday act that we had planned to do without words, not as some romantic, princely manner of confessing love, which it has nothing to do with. He knows he's won. He knows that he's managed to bring back the measurements in terms butterflies and the stardust and he's so proud of his little shadow of a wizard self for doing so.
Despite it all, I love him for it.
fin!
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