For all of you going, "where the heck was the chapter for yesterday!" I regret to admit it was lost somewhere between a graduation party and a lightsaber duel between Yoda and the Emperor. I believe I have found it again… yes, this is it.
Advance warning, this is a kind of busy weekend for me: two graduations and parties (one of which is 5 hours away), church, a birthday party for my mom, visiting my sister, and a parade to march in. If things here get waylaid, I'll be back on by Tues… promise.
Disclaimer: Me—"If I erect a temple in my back yard to them, do you think they won't mind this?" Cousin—"Maybe, but you can't, because it's already taken up by a monument to Erik himself. Me—"Blast."
Of Knights and Dragons
Chapter XVI: Weather
"The most considerable difference I note among men is not in their readiness to fall into error, but in their readiness to acknowledge these inevitable lapses."
(Thomas Huxley)
It should be raining, Raoul thought, but the sun refused to listen and obey the demands of human frailties, and defiantly blazed down on the silent party. This was a day for anger and sorrow, not for joy… the sun should be hidden by clouds, and a cold and bitter wind blowing.
Oblivious, the golden light beamed down, and in the full-flowering trees the calls of songbirds, magpies, and crows alike smote the air. Defeated by the silent force of nature, the Vicomte bowed his head, trying to concentrate on the soft murmurs of the priest's prayer.
"…earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes to ashes," the man intoned, a strange melody to the quiet background of an earth rejoicing in its life. Damn you, Erik. Damn you to hell.
He could have sworn he heard the ghost say, with an ironic bite of amusement, I already have been.
The scrape of metal on dirt, the soft grunt of men lifting the soil up, the hissing cascade as it trembled its way back down again. The sting of sweat in the eyes, the salty taste of it—so like tears! If the arms could speak, what tales of woe would they tell, how many shovels of dirt had they lifted to fill a thousand graves? An uncaring sun scorched down on their unrelieved black as the funeral party stood by and watched, deathly silent.
Does this mean Uriel wins? We have all taken up his kind and color, it seems, a dozen and more silent forms in black, even under the sky.
Raoul was the first to turn away, before even the grave was completely filled and the marker set. He knew what it read, for he had helped Raphael write the epitaph himself: Pierre d'Halier, Beloved Friend and Brother. 1848-1874. Our Memories are Immortal. The picture was clear in his mind's eye as he wandered silently away from the others, among the many stones and monuments.
This place was hauntingly familiar to him. Christine had often come here, before their marriage, for the grave of her own father was in this very place. Here he had come after her, to bring her away from the clutches of the lies insinuated by her 'Angel of Music', that wretched ghost who had so nearly torn them apart, and was doing so again.
"Why could you not leave us alone?" he said desperately, uncaringly, not knowing that anyone was listening; but the knowledge would not have changed the words or the tone. "Why could you not leave us alone?"
"It is in the nature of some things to remain constant, just as it is in the nature of others to change," remonstrated a nearby voice. "Wishing constants to become variables, and variables constants, is as futile as desiring that the sun shine when we dictate, and veil herself at our whim. It does not happen."
"I am not in the mood for philosophy, Persian," Raoul said bitterly, staring blindly at a weathered stone whose name and dates were long since worn away by the wind and rain. Funny, wasn't it—at one time surely this person must have been wealthy and important, but now no name remained, no fragment of memory, not even the faint scent of roses or withered petals lying dry and cold in the hand. Time forgets everything.
"It is only when one is not that the words go to heart," the Persian said, walking up beside him. The Vicomte did not bother to ask why he was here, or how he had come. He found that he did not care.
"You lied, Persian," he said tiredly. "When we met you told me Erik was dead."
"And so it is," his foreign companion said simply, cocking his head to the side. "You doubt this?"
"Last night Uriel came," Raoul said simply. "He walked into that room, and as soon as he did… the voice is the same, and the eyes, the bitter laughter, the ultimate strength of will."
"And such simple physical characteristics betray whether a man is living or dead?" the Persian queried, raising an eyebrow. "The color of a man's eyes or the motions of his hands when he speaks characterize who he is? There is a shell of a man that walks these city streets, Vicomte, but the soul of him is lost entirely. Perhaps I erred, I admit, in calling him dead. He is merely sleeping; sleeping so deep within a numbing cold that hell's fires are not enough to wake him, so deep that he hears no voice and feels no touch. Except, perhaps, one… but until then, there is nothing behind those golden eyes but darkness. What do you get when the Music leaves the Angel, but Death?"
"Your philosophy eludes me, Persian," Raoul said tiredly. "I do not have the time nor the inclination for these games. I wish… I wish we had never left England."
"You could always take her back, you know," the Persian supplied quietly, so quietly it was hardly above a breath.
"No, I cannot, and you know it well," the Vicomte de Chagny said, shaking his head. "Life may be a path, but it is not one that is retread again and again, one on which we can simply turn about and traverse back in time. No, I walked off this branching into darkness again, and only by going forward can the darkness be left behind."
"You realize that its shadow will never leave your memory."
"I do. There is always a price, isn't there, Persian? For the past, and the future." The man didn't answer; Raoul didn't expect him to. There was no reason, and no need; it was a purely rhetorical question.
"Then what do you do now, Vicomte de Chagny?" The Persian said with odd formality.
"I find Christine… and tell her the truth." He turned to meet the foreign eyes. "I tell her who Erik is… or rather, who he has become. I tell her why she dreamed of the Angel of Death destroying the opera ghost. And then…" he ran one hand over the tombstone that he had been examining, the unmarked one, worn and stained with dirt and age. Yes, time can even stain stone. "…then I let her act, as she sees fit," he said softly.
"Would you do that, Raoul?" The Persian said acutely, watching him with narrowed eyes. "If she decides she alone can save him, will you let her? England is not so far away for the two of you… to start again, go back from the beginning…"
"To lie again, and hide the truth of love behind make-believe fairy tales? No, I will not go back. I'm not perfect, Persian," and he started to laugh, darkly, at the concept. "Not nearly so. I cannot—will not—simply stand by and watch her fall into an abyss of nothingness, trying to save a man is dead and yet eternally will call out to her. It had almost happened before, in this very place. Sometimes I wonder if I was right to hold back my sword. Perhaps life would have been easier if he was dead in truth. But I cannot deny her one happiness in her old memories, one pleasant dream, if that dream she does desire…"
"And if she does not desire?"
"Then he can die for all I care," Raoul spat bitterly. "Raphael can have him, and repay his 'debts.' I am free of this whole business; it ends now."
He turned to go, but was stopped by a surprisingly strong grip on his arm. "You are going the wrong way," the Persian advised. "Your wife is already in the city, and looking for you."
"Christine is here?" Raoul said, surprised and afraid, something lighting in his eyes. "In the city? Christ, it's not safe for her to be on her own. Not with Uri—with Erik—oh God," he said, and started running.
"Vicomte, wait!" the Persian called after his fleeing form, but he was already dwindling into a small silhouette against the stony grey of the tombstones in Raoul's mind.