Disclaimer: The characters and the plot belong to Zelazny. This fic is a part of the PoV writing experiment at Endless Shadows.
A/N: Since html code is a personal enemy of mine, this is in text format. Consider everything written in all capitals to be there instead of itallics I would normally use. Besides, when you see this [1], it's a footnote. RThe asterisk simply won't work for me, and it's another mystery never to be solved... Oh, and this is just the first chapter, there'll be at least two more, I think...
(Now I'm going to try the ff.net editor, and turn the capitals into italics. We'll see if it works...)
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Written word is no domain of mine, not really. The Faiellites are the writers in the family, just like Rilgans are able to sing prettily. We, the Redheads, are skilled at some more important stuff - like power of mind, energies, and yes, magic. But now, if I want to explain what happened that night, and, more importantly, how I felt, I'm forced to write. No magic can help me here. So... how did I feel?
And how would have you felt had you just been forced to stab your favorite brother because he'd gone psycho?
My feelings on the subject of Brand were mixed. Saying "subject of Brand" might feel clumsy, but it makes it easier for me. As if I were looking at him through a microscope. Be scientific, Fi. Cold, distant, and objective. Try, at least.
Schooling your feelings is far more difficult than schooling your face.
The three of us had always stuck together: Bleys, Brand, and I. Bleys was the most talented of us, no doubt there; if you wanted to see brilliance walking, you just had to look at him. He had twice the wit or sharpness of myself and Brand counted together (and let's not be falsely modest here: both Brand and I are monstrously intelligent). Only, Bleys has always been ten times as lazy as we were hardworking. He never achieved half the power or wisdom Brand and I did - and he thought he didn't need them, either. He was Bleys. Why would you need to improve if you already are a Bleys. Or so he felt. At least I think so. On the other hand, were you in trouble, you could turn to Bleys. He'd cheer you up, comfort you, and protect you - if he didn't forget about you in the process. Responsibility has never been one of his qualities. But when I felt bad for any reason, I always sought Bleys.
Brand was another matter. Support would be too much to expect from him. But he was probably the only person in the world (besides from myself) that I felt I needed to protect. Mostly from himself. If Bleys was a fire (conflagration, more likely), Brand was the Sun. Bright, distant, and sometimes hidden by clouds. Clouds of depression, I think, in Brand's case. Most of us know how to deal with a conflagration. But how to handle a Sun gone mad, a sun threatening to burn itself out and destroy everything else in the process?
I'm lost in my own lousy metaphors. Damnit, It hurts to admit this, but I promised myself I'll be completely sincere here: even... Deirdre was a better writer than me.
I'm not absolutely sure what had happened to Brand, and I don't want to speculate. To hear my family discuss it, you'd think they have spent centuries studying Shadow psychiatry - and I think they enjoy that kind of discussions, too. Let's see what we think was wrong with Brand. Let's vivisect his personality, his drives and motives, although we know hardly anything about either of these. Brand was a paranoid-schizophrenic case: discuss! Sometimes they even go so far as to suggest the "illness" might have been genetical [1] . But... there I got what I asked for. Let me give you a piece of advice: never spy on your family if you can't handle their opinion on you.
But I digress. I just wanted to tell you how fond I was of Brand, while he still was himself. He was my baby brother, someone I cared about almost as much as about myself, and this should mean something. I spent centuries trying to shelter him and protect him. Obviously, I failed. No need to get pathetic or sentimental here. If I do that only once, I'll have to imprison myself in a tower next.
The imprisonment was my idea, and it was necessary. Bleys agreed, as he always does if you succeed in keeping his concentration for long enough to give him your arguments (and also, if you succeed in ignoring his tasteless jokes on the subject. Some of us really are incorrigible). So we created the prison for our brother. The guards were mine, as you may have already guessed. The setting was, of course, Bleys's. Let Bleys lose on a valley and see what happens.
"Sorry Brand, old buddy, but you've gone all wee mad, and left us no choice," as Bleys nicely put it. Always trust that one to be tactless, no matter what.
I don't have a stomach to write about what Brand looked like when I saw him trough his trump. Mad. Mad and dangerous. That was my mantra for the occasion. Mad and dangerous and not himself any more. Innocent look about me (as much as I'm capable of it, anyway) and a dagger in Brand's left kidney: not the best of plans, but the only one available at the moment. Otherwise, I'd have to admit to everything we'd done - and I simply couldn't make myself do that. Call it fear, call it what you like. No, I didn't think what the three of us had done was a good idea, not any more. But to admit so and let Corwin and the rest judge me? Judge us? No way. So, stabbing it was; stabbing and the hope my brother won't live long enough as to say who did it.
Vomiting was not an option afterwards, so I chose wine. Wine to keep me calm, to keep my face straight, to numb my emotions and give me courage. Have you ever heard of a wronger usage of wine? Looking at my list, you probably understand that it may partly succeed only in giving one the courage needed. But it's the wrong kind of courage most of the time.
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[1] (yes, the footnote): I won't mention any names, but some of us think they know everything on the human psyche only because they were psychoanalyzed by Freud. I mean, I have spoken not only to both Jung and Adler on a number of occasions, but also to all the best Shadow psychiatrists Dad brought to try to help Dworkin. And I don't boast about it. I don't even put it in the body of the text.
A/N: Since html code is a personal enemy of mine, this is in text format. Consider everything written in all capitals to be there instead of itallics I would normally use. Besides, when you see this [1], it's a footnote. RThe asterisk simply won't work for me, and it's another mystery never to be solved... Oh, and this is just the first chapter, there'll be at least two more, I think...
(Now I'm going to try the ff.net editor, and turn the capitals into italics. We'll see if it works...)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Written word is no domain of mine, not really. The Faiellites are the writers in the family, just like Rilgans are able to sing prettily. We, the Redheads, are skilled at some more important stuff - like power of mind, energies, and yes, magic. But now, if I want to explain what happened that night, and, more importantly, how I felt, I'm forced to write. No magic can help me here. So... how did I feel?
And how would have you felt had you just been forced to stab your favorite brother because he'd gone psycho?
My feelings on the subject of Brand were mixed. Saying "subject of Brand" might feel clumsy, but it makes it easier for me. As if I were looking at him through a microscope. Be scientific, Fi. Cold, distant, and objective. Try, at least.
Schooling your feelings is far more difficult than schooling your face.
The three of us had always stuck together: Bleys, Brand, and I. Bleys was the most talented of us, no doubt there; if you wanted to see brilliance walking, you just had to look at him. He had twice the wit or sharpness of myself and Brand counted together (and let's not be falsely modest here: both Brand and I are monstrously intelligent). Only, Bleys has always been ten times as lazy as we were hardworking. He never achieved half the power or wisdom Brand and I did - and he thought he didn't need them, either. He was Bleys. Why would you need to improve if you already are a Bleys. Or so he felt. At least I think so. On the other hand, were you in trouble, you could turn to Bleys. He'd cheer you up, comfort you, and protect you - if he didn't forget about you in the process. Responsibility has never been one of his qualities. But when I felt bad for any reason, I always sought Bleys.
Brand was another matter. Support would be too much to expect from him. But he was probably the only person in the world (besides from myself) that I felt I needed to protect. Mostly from himself. If Bleys was a fire (conflagration, more likely), Brand was the Sun. Bright, distant, and sometimes hidden by clouds. Clouds of depression, I think, in Brand's case. Most of us know how to deal with a conflagration. But how to handle a Sun gone mad, a sun threatening to burn itself out and destroy everything else in the process?
I'm lost in my own lousy metaphors. Damnit, It hurts to admit this, but I promised myself I'll be completely sincere here: even... Deirdre was a better writer than me.
I'm not absolutely sure what had happened to Brand, and I don't want to speculate. To hear my family discuss it, you'd think they have spent centuries studying Shadow psychiatry - and I think they enjoy that kind of discussions, too. Let's see what we think was wrong with Brand. Let's vivisect his personality, his drives and motives, although we know hardly anything about either of these. Brand was a paranoid-schizophrenic case: discuss! Sometimes they even go so far as to suggest the "illness" might have been genetical [1] . But... there I got what I asked for. Let me give you a piece of advice: never spy on your family if you can't handle their opinion on you.
But I digress. I just wanted to tell you how fond I was of Brand, while he still was himself. He was my baby brother, someone I cared about almost as much as about myself, and this should mean something. I spent centuries trying to shelter him and protect him. Obviously, I failed. No need to get pathetic or sentimental here. If I do that only once, I'll have to imprison myself in a tower next.
The imprisonment was my idea, and it was necessary. Bleys agreed, as he always does if you succeed in keeping his concentration for long enough to give him your arguments (and also, if you succeed in ignoring his tasteless jokes on the subject. Some of us really are incorrigible). So we created the prison for our brother. The guards were mine, as you may have already guessed. The setting was, of course, Bleys's. Let Bleys lose on a valley and see what happens.
"Sorry Brand, old buddy, but you've gone all wee mad, and left us no choice," as Bleys nicely put it. Always trust that one to be tactless, no matter what.
I don't have a stomach to write about what Brand looked like when I saw him trough his trump. Mad. Mad and dangerous. That was my mantra for the occasion. Mad and dangerous and not himself any more. Innocent look about me (as much as I'm capable of it, anyway) and a dagger in Brand's left kidney: not the best of plans, but the only one available at the moment. Otherwise, I'd have to admit to everything we'd done - and I simply couldn't make myself do that. Call it fear, call it what you like. No, I didn't think what the three of us had done was a good idea, not any more. But to admit so and let Corwin and the rest judge me? Judge us? No way. So, stabbing it was; stabbing and the hope my brother won't live long enough as to say who did it.
Vomiting was not an option afterwards, so I chose wine. Wine to keep me calm, to keep my face straight, to numb my emotions and give me courage. Have you ever heard of a wronger usage of wine? Looking at my list, you probably understand that it may partly succeed only in giving one the courage needed. But it's the wrong kind of courage most of the time.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
[1] (yes, the footnote): I won't mention any names, but some of us think they know everything on the human psyche only because they were psychoanalyzed by Freud. I mean, I have spoken not only to both Jung and Adler on a number of occasions, but also to all the best Shadow psychiatrists Dad brought to try to help Dworkin. And I don't boast about it. I don't even put it in the body of the text.