I'm not usually the random type (oh wait, yes I am), but I just had to put this. It's it strange when you put a question mark after an explicative? Like: holy crap? Damnit? Yippee? Oh, happy-day? Woah? Wicked? Stellar? Or my personal favorite: lol?
I know I want it, but I can't have it, damned illusive copywrite franchise… (For those who haven't guessed by now, that means I don't own anything that has to do with Tortall)
Reviews! w00t!Numair's Lover, thanks for the review! And it's all you guys's great reviews and responses that keep me going, really, no joke. And that last sentence? It was aimed to please (wink!).
Nativewildmage, woohoo! Thanks for another review! You make my head swell so huge with all your compliments…it's tragic. But don't stop!
WalkInDreams, girl, your finally a fool with the rest of us fools, you got an account, but you need to stick something in it quick! I want to read your great works of fanciful-fan-fiction; especially if they have Gainel, but if not that's ok, too.
I'm glad you understand where I was coming from with interlude 2, I think it is a little vague as to whether it is a dream or a 'real-dream', as it were, but I think it's clear once people read the chapter afterward, which is fine…I hope.
And yes, I did stay as close to the Gainel in Tamora Pierce's literary works, but I haven't read RotG in ages and I was mostly going on the mental image I'd remembered him having, so It might not be the same, but I lay may fears at rest, as you had a similar picture; that's good and bad: it's good because it means he's compatible with Tammy's original, and it's bad because it means I have inane sense of memory when it comes to little details about characters in stories, but I already knew about that ability.
I can't remember what I had for breakfast, or that I had a doctors appointment the next day, or where I put my glasses (usually on my head), but I remember that Baile Doman was the river boat captain in the first Wheel of Time book when I see him again randomly appear in book three, then book four, then books six, eight, and nine. You got to remember every person ever mentioned when you are reading those books, because they all pop up again in later books and are totally important…it's bothersome, but worth it.
But anyways…thank you for the review.
And Ace Ryn Knight buddy, I had thought you'd abandoned me, I was so sad. But anyways…I'm glad you like Sarralyn, she doesn't realize it yet, but she'd a pretty tough cookie these days, what with getting Shang hand-to-hand training, she's going to woop-ass. It's going to be funny when Gainel sees that she isn't an innocent little girl, he's going to freak; not be mad just totally shocked. I can almost guarantee it'll be funny (I haven't worked out all the details yet,).
And maybe when I get my lazy ass an e-mail account, you can beta my stuff, or something. Most things aren't misspelled; I just use the wrong word in place of other words by accident, Microsoft Word likes to alert me to miss spelled words using highly annoying red squigglies, but it doesn't tell me when things sound stupid because I accidentally wrote dream-polls instead of dreams-pools.
It also likes to tell me that my grammar is atrocious when in reality the program is confused by what the subject of the sentence is. It often likes to tell me to use him or her instead of himself or herself, but two years of Spanish actually did help my grammar (surprisingly) so I know it's just good ol' MW skrewing with me…it likes to do that I've found…
Now everyone review please! Because it makes me happy? AND PLEASE FORGIVE MY CRAPPY MIDDLE ENGLISH! It's not Old English; I found that out today, it's Middle English. And anyone who tells you otherwise, is a liar and you should show him your displeasure with him violently. Just kidding.Providence Smiles
By LGR
Part II: Fragility
—Gainel shook himself from his own daydreams, hating his lack of self-control as he drifted off into his own fantasies when there was work to be done, and the bar that kept him from the thing he cared about the most; more than all the realms combined. How could he ever have thought she might care for him, how could he ever be anything she'd want?
Equitus's trial had been surprisingly uneventful, as it turned out that he had been maintaining the seals, as he should have been; in fact Gainel had been blamed for the incident. Apparently, the wards over his realm were so strong that they blocked the defensive and sensing capabilities of the current seals. Equitus should have reported this so that Gainel could fix them, but he hadn't. So in truth, it really was Equitus's fault, but Mithros wouldn't hear of it and waved the punishment.
Gainel was furious at Mithros's playing favorites with his son. He was a supposed to be the very personification of justice, and yet he had always been terribly biased when it came to Gainel.
He supposed he couldn't blame his brother, Gainel's very essence incorporating chaos, that element that was the great enemy to the lawfulness and rigid structure that Mithros stood for, however, Gainel would never understand how he could still treat him this way.
Mithros was the very reason Gainel would never be able to be with Lynn, even if by some miracle she cared for him as much as he had come to care for her. Not only was Mithros extremely adverse to god-mortal relationships, he had never done a thing for Gainel that hadn't been equally advantageous for him.
But Gainel didn't hate him. It was hard for him to think of other Gods as being capable of an emotion so powerful as hate, but he knew he himself was capable of it by the mere fact that he knew he was capable of such love, as he had found recently.
No, Gainel couldn't hate him, some things one just can't help, such as their nature, and Gainel knew that Mithros was only doing as his nature demanded. But often times it caused him such confusion and hurt that Gainel wondered if Mithros even knew how much his sharp words and gestures of distaste really hurt him?
Lately Gainel's emotions were so fragile and confused that he could hardly function. The littlest thing would set him on edge, etch at his heart or set him off into flights of fancy; it wasn't just natural and it wasn't healthy. Emotional exhaustion tired him out more than anything else and he needed more and more time to just sit and think of nothing, or else he would go insane.
It was so lucky for him that he was the very best maker of constructs in the Divine realms; he often had a lot of time to himself because they did their jobs so very well with very little interference by him. Gainel imagined, however, that this was what made him so very lonely in the first place; so much time to himself and nothing to fill it with.
Directly after the Trial, it had taken him some time to finagle his wards so that they remained as capable as ever, but allowed the seal access to his realm, however he had managed to do so, and he was left, once again, alone inside his domain.
It hadn't seemed odd to him, that he would choose to socialize (at least as much as one of the Great Gods could socialize) with a child of only twelve, she was such a refreshing change from the narrow looks made by Mithros, the mute responses of the Black god, or the down right arrogance of everyone else.
And she listened to him, asked him questions that didn't contain hidden traps or barbed alternate-meanings, and always had something interesting to talk about. What seemed like an everyday occurrence for her was, for the most part, completely new to him, which is so very fulfilling when one had lived as long and seen as much as a being such as him had.
The academic or historical world was no mystery to him, but what Lynn's younger brother and her cousin were up to in the middle of the night steeling ingredients from her father's ingredients cupboard was. And he even got a few laughs when Lynn told him it had turned out they needed them because her cousin Thom had inadvertently told them how to create a mild explosive mixture, and that they had used it to utterly destroy a tree where the girls there age would sit and gossip about them.
He couldn't even remember the last time he'd laughed; it had been so long ago.
It had genuinely surprised him when she seemed to enjoy his company as well, though he couldn't imagine why, he thought of himself as extremely dull and probably very gloomy, but she had wished for him to come visit her dreams as much as he could, before she hastily apologized for being so selfish of his time.
He couldn't even describe how very good it felt to be wanted…or welcomed at least. He wished that she might want him the way he often wanted her, but he could never be sure.
And this wanting. It hadn't appeared until three years after they'd met, when Lynn was fifteen and he'd decided he wanted to do something for her, and her birthday, which she'd just mentioned the week before without really paying attention, had been the perfect excuse.
That wanting was something that seemed so primal that he was often frightened by it.
Gods didn't often want things, not the way mortals did, with all of their being. But when they did, they simply couldn't live comfortably without the thing or action that inspired such a want, and this thing was most often spiritual domination of a country or people that they had taken as their own. Gods were very protective of what was theirs.
Gainel had never really wanted anything in his life; and even now it wasn't so much of a want as it was a need. It was such an alien sentiment that he often wondered if he wasn't a bit unbalanced.
And on that visit in which he'd wished her happy birthday and given her the choice of anything she wanted to become temporarily real, she'd asked him to sit next to her at her favorite place.
It was so what he would have wanted were it his birthday (not that gods really had birthdays, or would celebrate them if they did), that he was happy to oblige her. But even as he did so, he couldn't help but feel sub-conscious about the situation.
He hadn't told her how he had begun to feel around her; and though he wanted to tell her, he was more afraid of how she might react. So he held his tongue and tried not to act too suspicious; however he wasn't sure how well he had managed.
And then she'd asked him for a hug and he hadn't felt happier to do anything since the beginning of his existence.
Uusoae hadn't tried anything knew, and though the bird immortal, whom Lynn had named Fancy, had contacted him twice about the presence of a chaos-construct, all they had been doing was watching, and though he was positive that they had been sent to spy upon Lynn, he wasn't able to prove such a claim, nor would it really matter if he could.
And in the meantime, Lynn's sixteenth birthday arrived and he once again asked her to name her gift, and she'd chosen the same thing and he couldn't help but have daring thoughts that she might eventually come to return the affection that she summoned from him with only the thought of her name.
He hadn't wanted to let her go; but he had. His place was in dream, we would never be able to leave it; and for the time being, hers was in the Living realms, despite his wish that it was with him.
When Lynn's seventeenth birthday came around, she had for the third time, asked for the same gifted, and though Gainel was glad, he couldn't help but wish that she would ask something more of him, because he often thought that he wanted to give her everything he had, but he didn't have anything to give her except his worthless person and his own realm.
But Gainel felt an unrelenting sadness coming from her, and that gave him fear. What thing would cause her distress? With everything he was he wanted to take it all away from her, but she hadn't told him anything, and Gainel felt that asking her was impinging on her privacy. What right did he have to meddle with her business? It wasn't his, and he hadn't been invited to share upon.
But oh how he wanted to, and he felt anger toward whomever or whatever would dampen her spirits.
And just now he had that reverie.
His breathing was frenzied and uneven and he could feel himself grow cold and his power was reacting strangely.
And he realized he was panicking.
Was it moral for him to think of someone in that way? Was it normal for someone like him to be so obsessed with another being? And the more he thought of it the more he realized that it wasn't just a stray thought, he actually wanted it, like he'd never wanted anything in his multiple-millennia of life.
Gainel needed answers and he certainly wouldn't find them where he was.
The Master of Dream ghosted from his domain, not bothering to inform his constructs of his departure, they would sense it themselves and automatically make the proper preparations.
Pushing past the infinite number of territories and dimensions he focused on leaving all of them behind. Where he was going was a place as old as time itself, before the creation of all things; when there had been but a single spark of fire in a sea of emptiness, and so the cosmos had been born
He suddenly stepped into an area of such vastness, that he was temporarily stunned.
The great sea of nothingness lay before him, peppered with small, twinkling stars, and in the center, a being of pure flaming energy and power.
"Thy Son," Mother Flame said, her voice so vibrant, and filled with calming warmth, "What brings thou to grace thy Mother with thy company?"
"Mother I…I haven't been feeling well lately…" he responded.
The presence of his divine mother calmed him. The other Gods might avoid the presence of the Ancient Goddess, but he couldn't help but seek her company in his most desperate of hours.
She has seen all of eternity; she must know what illness plagued him, if it was an illness at all, and in the meantime, he could bask in the tranquility of her warm glow as he tried to regain his own inner peace.
"Thou hast felt unwell, as of late? Prithee, in what manner?"
"Mother, I have felt things…that I have never felt before and I…"
He didn't know how to explain. He didn't even understand what he was feeling, that was why he had come to her. Gainel knew he could ask Mother Flame anything, that she wouldn't think him foolish for asking.
He ended up spouting out the whole miserable tale as she listened patiently; he recounted his fears and vain hopes, and his own emotional and physical torment.
"Mother, please tell me…give me something…will I always be this way?" he finished.
She smiled, "Dear Son, beleiveth thy Mother. Some such things pass in time as they may, but I asketh the, doth thou wisheth for such a thing to pass? All things art not meant to come to thine end. Thy instincts telleth the, but doth thou listen?"
"I…don't understand…"
She gave him a knowing smile "Not anything which existeth in all the Realms, existeth without purpose. Such iseth the promise of Providence. Go my Son, returneth to thy Realm."
And he left her.
The words of Mother Flame were often hard to interpret; her consciousness existed on a level that made it difficult for her to interact with her children. But he had been comforted.
Not anything which existeth in all the Realms, existeth without purpose.
There was a reason theses things were happening, and she had also once again reminded him of that which was so very hard for mortals to see: that no feeling, object or action was in itself good, or evil: it was the intention that made it so. And all his intentions were most definitely not meant to harm.
The promise of Providence. That all things would have a purpose and all that was created would have a right to exist.
Somehow the ancient goddess had eased his pains, at least for a time, and he could finally gain some much-needed emotional solace.
But even as he began to relax again, thoughts of his heartbreak weren't far away; and though he managed to keep them at bay, the oppressive feeling that had plagued him in recent years returned and would not go away.
Would he ever find peace within himself again? What had happened to that time not so very long ago when he was, if not happy, at peace with his position and himself? Why could he never feel comfortable in his own skin anymore? Why did his insides fight to get out, and why was he so afraid to let them? And since when had his inside heart become different then the one he should to everyone else?
Gainel had never realized how truly fragile his own feelings were. And now that he had we wondered how he'd managed as long as he had without his self-esteem shattering under the pressure.
And he saw the truth, and the truth was that the things he'd felt then were nowhere near what he felt now. And once again, he asked himself how one could want something or someone as much as he did at this very moment.
Did he wish these feelings to go away?
What he wanted to think was yes, I'm sick of it, and I don't want to care about things so much anymore. I just want to be able to be alone again.
What he actually thought was no, I knew what to do about them, so that they wont make me hurt anymore.
Everything seemed as hopeless as ever but, he would show Sarralyn a calm face; he couldn't bear to think he might distress her.
And Providence was resigned, what would be, would be.
