a year to the day.
February 15th, 2008
January 11th, 2008
newspapers and heartbreak.
Amrothos sat at his father's ornately carved fortepiano, and pressed one key after another to listen to the tiny metallic hammers hit strings deep within the mysterious wooden songbird. Beside him was a daily dispatch, written in that heavy scribe's hand that marked all the gossip newspapers. Amrothos Swanhelm makes his first public appearance after Umbar, the large header said.
( a reckoning. )
( a reckoning. )
December 21st, 2007
Dreams of Stars.
(note: Set between the fireships and before Zaira/etc. reached the Swanhelm. PG-13, there's non-graphic descriptions of blood and vomit.)
( He dreams of a sea full of stars. )
( He dreams of a sea full of stars. )
December 8th, 2007
days turned into weeks...
Out of the chaos of his life a few regular moments of order had arisen, Amrothos found, piece by piece. With the arrival of Isfen into his life, nursing Aeriel, and even tending to Galador, the boy who was not his son, his quarters had begun to resume a habitable shape. He trusted the lady knight enough to leave her with his daughter, first for minutes at a time, but now he could almost go three hours without the waves of frantic panic that had once filled him. He had found the space and luxury -- and quiet -- to go on long walks in the city and sit on benches in quiet gardens, and write again.
He was a sailor, and a captain, and kept regular logs even when he was on land, though they were esoteric and of interest to nobody; records of what he had bought or spent, brief notes about his health, Aeriel's health, and lately, Galador's health, perhaps one line incidents about things that had pleased him. He kept his journal religiously, unable to break the habit of noting his time and place every day, for fear if he dropped the habit on land he would forget at sea. His social obligations demanded he write letters almost daily, which he did, without fail, keeping messengers busy back and forth. He had another journal, which really was just scraps of drafts of letters that he bound together when he could find them all, private musings and thoughts too personal to mail away, but too important to be discarded lightly.
But this was different. He sat in gardens, or at tables in abandoned taverns, and wrote for hours. It was separate from the letters, from the journals, which were all so thoughtful, so planned, so precise. He wrote hurriedly, frantically, staining his hands and his shirtsleeves, and ruining his typically impeccable appearance by running frantic hands through his frazzled hair. He would walk home with pages every day, messy, lost, scribbled pages that wove their way around in circles at first and only gradually began to develop a narrative of coherence.
He was writing about Her, and that made all the difference in the world. Aeriel's mother. The only woman he'd ever admitted to loving. The woman he had wanted to be with so much he had pretended to be a merchant captain, anything to get her to consider him because he wasn't the prince's son. The dark Haradric woman with deep eyes. He scribbled pages and pages, writing down everything he knew about her; her name (a secret so private he kept that page tucked inside his shirt against his skin), everything she had told him, their days and nights together. It was not a memoir, yet it was not fiction. It was true, and yet it was not entirely real. As he worked he often wept, fighting to keep his tears from blurring the messy pages.
It was getting harder to maintain the facade that he felt all right. He did not eat regularly, and avoided company as much as he could. He had time for Aeriel, time for Galador, time for the daily letters, but shut himself away from as many visitors as he could. His letters were less orderly than their wont, matters of politics full of dark writing and angry scribbles. Amrothos seemed to be less and less himself with every passing hour, walking out the door in the morning his usual orderly self, returning in the late afternoon a red-eyed maniac who refused dinner and slept listlessly.
It all came to a head sixty some scribbled pages later, with the words, then she shut the door. He blotted the ink on the page, wiped his quill on his handkerchief, stoppered his bottle. Quietly he packed everything away when the pages were all dry, and walked back to Imrahil's guest house.
Aeriel was napping, and Galador was out with Erchirion. The exhausted captain lay his papers on the writing table that served as his desk, ordering them neatly, so that only the page that bore Her name was missing, and took a fresh sheet, scrawling in messy grease pencil, should I keep looking? He didn't know who the question was for. He kissed his daughter and lay down on his bed. There, he did not dream, but slept the exhausted sleep of the sick.
And the story lay waiting.
He was a sailor, and a captain, and kept regular logs even when he was on land, though they were esoteric and of interest to nobody; records of what he had bought or spent, brief notes about his health, Aeriel's health, and lately, Galador's health, perhaps one line incidents about things that had pleased him. He kept his journal religiously, unable to break the habit of noting his time and place every day, for fear if he dropped the habit on land he would forget at sea. His social obligations demanded he write letters almost daily, which he did, without fail, keeping messengers busy back and forth. He had another journal, which really was just scraps of drafts of letters that he bound together when he could find them all, private musings and thoughts too personal to mail away, but too important to be discarded lightly.
But this was different. He sat in gardens, or at tables in abandoned taverns, and wrote for hours. It was separate from the letters, from the journals, which were all so thoughtful, so planned, so precise. He wrote hurriedly, frantically, staining his hands and his shirtsleeves, and ruining his typically impeccable appearance by running frantic hands through his frazzled hair. He would walk home with pages every day, messy, lost, scribbled pages that wove their way around in circles at first and only gradually began to develop a narrative of coherence.
He was writing about Her, and that made all the difference in the world. Aeriel's mother. The only woman he'd ever admitted to loving. The woman he had wanted to be with so much he had pretended to be a merchant captain, anything to get her to consider him because he wasn't the prince's son. The dark Haradric woman with deep eyes. He scribbled pages and pages, writing down everything he knew about her; her name (a secret so private he kept that page tucked inside his shirt against his skin), everything she had told him, their days and nights together. It was not a memoir, yet it was not fiction. It was true, and yet it was not entirely real. As he worked he often wept, fighting to keep his tears from blurring the messy pages.
It was getting harder to maintain the facade that he felt all right. He did not eat regularly, and avoided company as much as he could. He had time for Aeriel, time for Galador, time for the daily letters, but shut himself away from as many visitors as he could. His letters were less orderly than their wont, matters of politics full of dark writing and angry scribbles. Amrothos seemed to be less and less himself with every passing hour, walking out the door in the morning his usual orderly self, returning in the late afternoon a red-eyed maniac who refused dinner and slept listlessly.
It all came to a head sixty some scribbled pages later, with the words, then she shut the door. He blotted the ink on the page, wiped his quill on his handkerchief, stoppered his bottle. Quietly he packed everything away when the pages were all dry, and walked back to Imrahil's guest house.
Aeriel was napping, and Galador was out with Erchirion. The exhausted captain lay his papers on the writing table that served as his desk, ordering them neatly, so that only the page that bore Her name was missing, and took a fresh sheet, scrawling in messy grease pencil, should I keep looking? He didn't know who the question was for. He kissed his daughter and lay down on his bed. There, he did not dream, but slept the exhausted sleep of the sick.
And the story lay waiting.