He'd really thought he was past this; this collision of worlds, this fretting over people who shouldn't even matter. It seemed like he couldn't be left alone to live out his days in peace, instead he was yanked away from his timeline again and again until he could barely place himself anymore.
Years had gone by since he'd been transported home by Silvertongue. Years since he had thought all his dreams had come true and he could finally be with his wife and daughter.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
Even though he loved and cherished his wife, Dustfinger had found himself adrift and unfocussed. He discovered that he missed elements of Meggie's world more than he liked to admit: motor vehicles, electricity, telephones and that delicious food 'pizza'. He missed Farid's boyish confidence, Elenor's quick wit and Meggie's pre-teen mixture of ferocity and innocence. His relationship had waned and the passion they'd once shared dwindled. And Dustfinger did what he always did: he got itchy feet and ran, leaving Roxanne and Brianna behind.
The guilt that weighed on his conscience was tantamount to betraying Meggie and her father in the other realm but he steadfastly ignored it. They would be better without him. They all were. Joining the motley companions he paid his way doing shows around the world, sending the majority back to Brianna. He felt frustrated, as though he was stretching for something and never quite getting there. He went back and forth between schools of thought; it wasn't his fault he was this way - the writer had made him this way and he was the author of his own fate; no-one controlled him but himself.
Generally these schools entwined when he was merrymaking with the motley crew and he ended up with 'maybe I was destined to to die and by thwarting that that end he had doomed himself to a lifetime of emptiness and misery.' After the revelry had ended, he drank himself into oblivion and started the cycle over again in the morning. It hadn't been much of an existence , far from the blissful ignorance he'd experienced before.
Until.
He'd found an unconscious woman outside their chambers and suddenly he was rudely awakened to a period of his life he had been trying to forget. It was as though a narrator had plucked the only thing that would change his mind deposited her into his lap, literally. Dustfinger shed his greatcoat onto one of Rochelle's moth-eaten armchairs and strode purposefully to the partition in front of the bathtub. Maybe if he tried to relax, this would all seem manageable in the morning. Dustfinger pressed his palm to the surface of the water, curious about the temperature. It had been a good few moons since he had experienced a freshly-drawn bath - especially one that hadn't been used by several others beforehand. The water was pleasantly warm and fragrant. He relieved himself of his garments and settled into the tub, his height preventing it from altogether comfortable. If there was one thing Dustfinger wasn't very good at, it was letting himself relax. It was the main motivation behind joining the motley folk as a child - well that and friendship with the Black Prince. His parents were never bothered about his welfare and spent most of their time gambling or drinking in the alehouses, too intoxicated to care about their wayward son. Consequently, Dustfinger had spent a lot of time on the streets, forging friendships with the unsavoury and abandoned, while earning a living performing silly routines to charm passers-by. He soon utilised his fair hair and boyish blue eyes to his advantage, learning that a sweet smile went a long way getting coin. He'd lost his given name and chosen a new one - inspired by his budding skill of fire-eating and nimble fingers. The Black Prince enveloped him into the fold and soon he had the family that he had always yearned for. Even now, there was something to be said for the kindness and generosity one could find with travellers and Dustfinger was consistently grateful for it.
After his exile in Silvertongue's world, Dustfinger went home to find Roxanne had another man's child and his home wasn't his anymore. The Black Prince was dead, killed by an unknown force and Inkworld was not how he had left it. Once again, the man was stuck in the inbetween like a moth trapped between sheets of glass. He was cursed to be an outsider wherever he went - more of a legend than a person in his own realm. Whatever Fenoglio had done to him he hadn't aged a day since being read back in and continued to boost a 'youthful' appearance of a man not yet 30 summers old. Dustfinger danced between self-loathing and apathy but he'd long reached the conclusion that he was bound the roam the pages of his book alone like Kane in that 'bible'.
But then there were two. Meggie Folchart. A woman who didn't fit in, who was lost and alone like him. Someone, who, at least, needed his help. A strange feeling like fate hovered around Dustfinger's heart for a few seconds before he submerged himself in the warm water and washed it away. When the fire-eater levered himself on the fluffy carpet, he took a moment to relish being clean before rubbing himself down and padding over to the chest where Rochelle kept some of his spare clothes. He'd come to her so often filthy and threadbare that she insisted on keeping some spare garments in the attic that would fit him. There were also some remnants of his life in the other world there, like jeans and a t-shirt that said 'Levi' - whoever that was. Although out of place in Inkheart, at times like these they were perfect. Pulling on the said garments, the tall man sprawled on the rug in front of the fire, using his gift to remove excess moisture from his hair - a vain if slightly indulgent practice. Feeling relaxed but peckish he laid back and closed his eyes, allowing soft, ochre flames to seep from his fingertips and form his tale for the following night. Weaving his powers into stories and figures was a relatively new addition to his repertoire and he kept his mind busy by thinking up new ways to contort and manipulate the flames to inspire and enthral his audience night after night. Tonight his thoughts and fingers created shapes of a girl running from a shadow, a man whose voice wove tales of gold, creatures ripped from their homelands and thrown into captivity, a cruel man with a wicked smile and the tongue of a snake, a small dog that tried to bark the shadows away. Dustfinger let his mind wander until his eyelids began to grow heavy and he rooted out one of the spare blankets, making up a bed for himself on the rug by Meggie's bed and hoping she didn't step on him when she rose.