The Disciple/The Signless: Dor (Romanian),The Longing For Someone You Love Very Much, Combined With Sadness, And Implying The Need To Sing Sad Songs
Warning for discussion of past death and grief for a loved one in this story
You miss him so badly you think it's killing you. You mean that in a very literal way. You feel old and worn out and tired, and missing him is a constant dull ache in your chest that you can't stand to focus on. Some nights you wake up still half-asleep and turn toward him without thinking and remember you're alone. Those are the worst nights. Once, you realized that your memories were starting to fade with time, and that there were details and conversations and nights you couldn't remember, and it terrified you, and now you've made it the goal of what's left of your life to remember everything
It's… not as easy as you might wish. He tried to teach you how to write for sweeps and sweeps, and you resisted because he was being silly about it being important (and because saying it was dumb made him go angry and red), but he hadn't been teaching you for long before… Before. And you're slow and clumsy and wish he was still here to teach you better. Sometimes you hate it and wish you could stop because seeing your claws shaping big ugly letters is nothing like seeing him smoothly write page after page, but it's what you have left of him, so you do it anyways, even when you want to cry of frustration.
It's horrible and wonderful. You write down everything he ever told you, or that you heard him tell others, and you do it for love of him, pure flushed pity for how beautiful he was and how carefully he held you, like you were something precious. And you hate him too, for how hard this is, how you never wanted to learn how to write and how he made you want it regardless. You hate the work you put into making your brushes, one by one, hair by hair, mixing inks and writing his words for him because he isn't there to tell you himself. And then when the paint is dry, you lean your head up against the walls of your cave and talk to him, and you miss him so terribly, and you'll never hold him again, but you pour out your feelings to the cave walls and it's the closest you'll ever be to him again. And your work gives you a reason to go on. He wouldn't want that, and when you think that maybe, just maybe, someone could be inspired by him and the work you've done, and you're a weak substitute for what he was, but you can do this and pass on his words, for his sake as well as your own.
He promised that he'd teach you to write poetry. That was how he finally persuaded you that learning to write would be worth your time. He told you that it was painting a picture with words, and he talked about things like rhyme and meter, but you don't know any more because he's gone, you'd had one last evening where he talked to you about poems and somedays, and he was blood and ash by morning. You don't know to write poetry, and if he's not teaching you, you don't want to learn. He told you that it was like songs without music, and so sometimes you sing to him, because that's the closest thing you have left. Some mornings, with his words and memories fresh in your mind and your throat worn out with singing to him, you can go to sleep and almost imagine that he's lying there beside you.