DISCLAIMER- The lyrics to 'Slipped Away' (the song) are copywrighted to Avril Lavigne, and the ideas and characters are Mercedes Lackey's!
Hey, this is a short fic that I thought of one night while listening to my Avril Lavigne CD. This song came on and it was called Slipped Away, and it reminded me of Vanyel and Stefen, so I decided to write this. While I was listening and thinking about what exactly I could write, mind you I put it on repeat, I started to have tears come to my eyes, and I hope that this will effect you in the same way as it did me!
P.S. The lyrics in the song will be changed slightly to accommodate for the timing in the fic! Also, anything in italics, except parts where he is thinking, is exactly copied from the book, or the actually lyrics of the song. Also, the bold and italic parts are the lyrics!
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Candlemarks later, he woke. Another Guardsman sat on a stool nest to the cot, keeping watch beside him.
He blinked, confused by his surroundings-then remembered.
"I want to see him," he said, sitting up.
"Sir-"the Guardsman said
hesitantly, "There ain't nothin' to see. We couldn't find a
thing. Just-
then. Lots of them."
"Then I want to see where he was," Stef insisted. "I have to-please-"
The Guardsman looked uncomfortable, but helped him up, led him out and supported him as he climbed back up the pass. Bodies were being collected and piled up to be burned; the stench and black smoke were making Stef sick, and there was blood everywhere. And at the narrowest point of the pass, where the mortuary crews hadn't even reached, it was even worse.
Stefen's escort tightened his grip suddenly and yelped, as a white- furred shape appeared beside them. Hyrryl's blue eyes spoke her sympathy wordlessly to Stefen, and he heard himself saying, "It's all right ... they're friends," as another fell in on his left-Aroon. The Guardsman swallowed, and they resumed their walk.
Blackened, burned, and mangled bodies were piled as many as three and four deep, and all of them wore ebony armor or robes. The carnage centered around one spot, a place clean of snow and dirt, scoured right down to the rock, with the stone itself polished black and shining. Hyrryl and Aroon took up positions on either side of the pass, and sat on their haunches, almost at attention, watching over the Bard. The Guardsman bowed and retreated wordlessly, and no one came near.
Stef stumbled tear-blinded through the heaped bodies, looking for one- one White-clad amid all the black-
There was nothing, just as the Guardsman had told him. Stef shook his head, frantically, then began looking for anything, a scrap of white, anything at all.
Stefen searched
for candlemarks on end, finding nothing that could make a match with
anything that Vanyel had carried here with him.
How could
everything that meant anything to Vanyel be washed away so suddenly?
'Did Vanyel use something that Stef had not known that he had? Had he
used the Final Strike?'
How could Stef think so stupidly, of course Van had used the Final Strike, he had no choice, he could not have faced all these mages, and fighters alone for long at all.
Stef wept softly and Hyrryl and Aroon bowed their heads slightly, letting him be alone, in one sense or another, for the time being.
I miss you, miss you so bad
I
won't forget you, oh it's so sad
I hope you can hear me
I'll
remember it clearly
Today you slipped away
And today I found
It
won't be the same.
I didn't get around to kiss you,
Goodbye on the hand
I wish that I could see you again,
I
know that I can't,
I hope you can hear me
I'll remember it clearly
Today,
you, slipped away
And today I found
It won't be the same.
I have had my wake up
Won't you wake up.
I keep asking why.
I can't take it
It wasn't fake,
It happened you passed by.
Now you're gone
Now you're gone
There you go
There you go
Somewhere I can't bring you back
Now you're gone
Now you're gone
There you go
There you go
Somewhere you're not coming back
Today, you, slipped away
And today I found
It won't be the same,
No, today you slipped away
And today I found
It won't be the same
I miss you
Stef looked up towards the spot he had strayed from and again stood. He would not give up now. Van had been in this spot, and Van had had many things with him, Stef would find something, sooner or later.
Stef continued looking, starting again at the blacked and polished stone circle.
Finally, after
candlemarks of searching, a glint of silver caught his eye. He
bent-and found a thin wisp of blood-soaked, white horsehair. And
beside it, the mage-focus he had given to Vanyel; the chain gone, the
silver setting half-melted and tarnished, the stone blackened,
burned, cracked in two.
He clutched his finds to his chest; his
knees gave way, and he fell to the stone, his grief so
all-
encompassing that he could not even week-only whisper
Vanyel's name, as if it were an incantation that would bring him
back.
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I'm going to tell you what I changed in the lyrics, and what they are supposed to be.
'I hope you can hear me
I'll remember it clearly
Today, you, slipped away
And today I found
It won't be the same.'
Is supposed to be,
'I hope you can hear me
I remember it clearly
The day you slipped away
Was the day I found
It won't be the same'
Also,
'I miss you, miss you so bad
I won't forget you, oh it's so sad'
Is supposed to be,
'I miss you, miss you so bad
I don't forget you, oh it's so sad'
Thanks for reading!