esotericas 1561 Share Posted August 31, 2023 “TO SAY OF A MAN THAT HE WAS SAILING TO SARANTIUM WAS TO SAY THAT HIS LIFE WAS ON THE CUSP OF CHANGE: POISED FOR EMERGENT GREATNESS, BRILLIANCE, FORTUNE – OR ELSE AT THE VERY PRECIPICE OF A FINAL AND ABSOLUTE FALL AS HE MET SOMETHING TOO VAST FOR HIS CAPACITY.” Spoiler T IS MIDNIGHT WHEN Alasdair awakes. Awakes is the wrong word. He has not been sleeping and so he does not so much awake as he does sit up and pull the covers off. The fortune-teller lies beside him, as fitfully asleep and as perfect and untouchable as ever. Alasdair wonders at the miracle of this. At the golden silk sheets and at the fortune-teller beside him and at the herbs bundled over their heads. He has wondered at his miraculous good luck every morning for the last twenty-odd years. There is an unpleasantness in knowing that this is the end of the wonder and the miracles. He stands over the sleeping fortune-teller for some time, watching. Learning his face and his posture and his breaths by heart. He must do this alone. He was always going to do this alone. Alasdair does not think about how he will fall asleep tonight, alone. He does not think about the jar of honey he keeps in his bag, or about the bar of pine soap, or about the wooden hyacinths in an old Carrion bottle on the kitchen table. His letter is short and to the point. He may be a musician but he has never been a poet. Out of all the letters he has written this one was by far the most difficult. He addresses it, To Fabian, my fortune-teller. There are many pages ruined with tears and smudged ink before Alasdair decides to use pencil instead. The door creaks when he slips through it, and it clicks softly shut behind him. He worries about waking the fortune-teller. He worries about waking Marian. He worries about waking Ramsay. The notes slide under their doors with the gentle whoosh of paper on worn wooden floors, and then Alasdair is outside. He does not like the city. He will never like the city. But it is better late at night, when all the tavern’s patrons have left and the streets are cold and dark. He has never been afraid of the dark. He does not mind the unknown. Even the incomprehensible, things like Magic and Fate and God, their unknowable-ness rests easy on his shoulders. The road is long. Alasdair walks with his bag over his shoulder, head upturned. The forests smell different here. Different from home. This place has never been home. As Alasdair walks, with nobody to speak to and nothing else to occupy him, he remembers. [OOC CONTENT WARNING: Flashbacks contain depictions of child abuse and self harm. If either of these will make you uncomfortable, don’t read.] Spoiler Alasdair is young. He is four and he has escaped the stone prison of Valwyck and found his way to the salt air and pleasant chatter of Lallybroch. Captain Callum with his battered fishing boat and his suntanned face takes him aboard, and Alasdair speaks for the first time with the wind in his hair and the waves below him. He calls to the fish by name and they call back. Alasdair does not return to Valwyck that night. His angry mother and his chilly sisters do not notice. Callum’s fishing boat has hammocks and there is one with no fisherman in it, and that becomes Alasdair’s place. The days are cold and damp and filled with wind and laughter and shouting. The nights are warm and dry and filled with firelight and song. Callum teaches him to tie a knot and to start a fire. He teaches him to sing and to clap out a rhythm when no instruments are available. And then the season turns and the customers stop coming and one day Callum’s crew does not sell a single fish. Money is too tight to feed a child so they send him back to shore and Alasdair finds himself trapped in Valwyck’s stone walls again. The servants have not told Alasdair’s mother he was gone or maybe she just does not care because there is nobody to greet him when he steps inside. There is also nobody to say goodbye when he leaves again. This time he goes east to Karosgrad. He is five years old now and the road is not so long. -=+=- The Karosgrad tavern is square and warm. There are two boys with golden hair in front of the bar. Alasdair sits with them and they do not make him talk and they bargain over crayons. One is older with muddy knees and easy smiles. He and Alasdair play swords and run in the woods. Their friendship is simple and uncomplicated. The other is younger with a yellow coat and tired eyes. He is shy but he understands things Alasdair does not and so he follows him incessantly. He gives Alasdair a piece of sea glass the colour of his eyes. Alasdair does not know it yet but this boy (this boy, with his yellow coat and his gold-and-silver hair and his tarot cards and his flowers) will be the only one in the world. But he also does know this as the golden boys drink hot chocolate and Alasdair draws pictures of the ocean. He knows that in meeting them his world has changed. -=+=- There is a little boy in Valwyck. His name is Anuraj. He is blue like the sea and he likes Alasdair best out of all his siblings because Alasdair reminds him of his father. He has not yet learned that this is not something to be proud of. He will learn that soon but for now he is pleased to be compared to the man in the portraits. The blue boy shows him magic and a ship with grey sails and someday the blue boy will call him brother. For now he takes Alasdair to an oasis in a desert where magic happens in its inexplicable magical way and the bear-spirit chooses him just like it chose his father. He does not understand this yet either. There is much he does not understand. Anuraj tells him this is okay and Alasdair believes him. He tucks the lotus music box into a safe spot on his bookshelf and does not yet know the bargain he has made. -=+=- “Apologise,” says Alasdair’s uncle. He is eleven and he does not understand. He is quiet, he does not speak except to the sea but he does not understand why this is something to be sorry for. His uncle tells him he is an idiot, and Alasdair shoves his sister away when she comes to speak to him afterwards. He has never been able to mend the things he breaks. Alasdair looks at his father’s portrait in Valwyck and he sees his own eyes and hair and face. He knows they are the same and he worries that they are the same. Alasdair is twelve when he leaves Karosgrad with a bag and his bear and no idea where he is going. He is twelve and the road is long but his boots are good and the wind is in his hair and he has food for a few days’ walk. He finds a city of tents and farmers and a boy asks to duel him and Alasdair wins. The boy’s friend has white hair and white skin and she offers him a lemon drop as a prize. Alasdair refuses but he knows that there is something special here and so he stays. The tavern in Adria is not a square. Stefan does not mind when Alasdair picks the meat out of the stew and the other man at the table introduces himself as Ardashir. Alasdair is swearing an oath he does not understand and blood is dripping from his palm onto the stone beneath him. But Ardashir is proud of him and these people want him here. So he waits for the cut to scab and he stays in a tent. The air is clear here and he sleeps better in his tent with his bear than he ever did inside stone walls. The days are rainy and Alasdair remembers Lallybroch and the cold of the Loch and thinks that this is something similar. -=+=- Nobody looks for him. -=+=- Alasdair is thirteen. He learns of armour and weaponry and of God and of Sin and he sees Ardashir in the courtyard with a whip in his hand and a bleeding back and he throws up underneath a tree. There is a challenge on a mountaintop and Alasdair does not relent even with Ardashir’s boot on his chest and a broken nose and Ardashir smiles when he refuses to give up. Alasdair wonders about fathers. He swears off meat and sweets and drink and he swears that if anyone dies, he will be the one to scatter the ashes. Alasdair does not break his promises. Lorina is as perfect as she is broken with her white hair and her white skin. She eats lemons like any other fruit and Alasdair teachers her to meditate and to listen to the trees and the ocean and the crackling of fire. He is thirteen when he takes her to a dogwood tree because she is blind but at least she can smell the flowers. Alasdair is thirteen when he storms into the sea and has to fight it to get out. He is thirteen when he looks in his reflection in the water and sees his father’s eyes and realises that he will not be able to escape this. -=+=- Alasdair is fourteen when Roslin tells him he is in love. He tells her about Lorina and flowers and God and Roslin tells him he loves her. Alasdair does not know how to be in love with someone. He gives her the fortune-teller’s seaglass and brings her flowers and they decide that this is what they want. Alasdair is fourteen when he almost dies. The battle is long and weary and broken bones heal fast but the limp never quite goes away. Alasdair looks at his face in the water and is proud of the scars. He is proud that he does not look like his father. It is the last time he fights. He learns later that people will not always protect him the way people protected him that day. He remembers Lorina’s healing and the back of the Duke’s horse bringing him up the hill and he remembers cannons. Alasdair is fourteen when he starts to lose focus. The world fades out while he sits next to the fire and next to Lorina and it does not return to him until the blade of his dagger is biting into his palm. She makes him promise to keep the wounds clean, at least. Alasdair does not break his promises. Ardashir is concerned but he is proud and Alasdair decides the pain is worth it for that alone. He travels hours on horseback and brings Lorina flowers every day. She can not see them but at least she can smell them. He is seventeen when he asks her to marry him, and he is seventeen when she says yes. -=+=- Alasdair is seventeen when Adria breaks and he returns to Haense and Valwyck and Roslin and stone walls and the cold northern air. There he finds the fortune-teller like he is waiting for him, like he knew this would happen. Lorina frets and the fortune-teller does not and so he and Alasdair are never far apart. He is seventeen when he speaks to the King about his father. He is seventeen when the King says “I loved him.” Fabian tells him, “Four of Cups.” He says, “If you stay on your path, it advises only discontent.” Alasdair is seventeen when he looks at the fortune-teller and remembers that he is just like his father. Lorina keeps the ring and Alasdair keeps the bracelet she gave him but it is over. The fortune-teller does not understand the first time Alasdair tries to tell him, wrapped in yellow sheets under open skies in a house not yet haunted. Alasdair does not have the words. -=+=- Alasdair is eighteen when he finds the words. The fortune-teller stares at him and then tells him that he loves someone else. That he has met someone from Balian with red hair who smiles easily and whose hands are not scarred. Alasdair can not force himself to leave. -=+=- There is simplicity in the ache of watching the fortune-teller love someone else. It tears at Alasdair just like the waves and the blade of his dagger in the palm of his hand. It is a kind of gluttony but it is not the kind that Alasdair has taught himself to give up so instead he buries himself in it and believes he deserves it. Then an uncle is dead and Alasdair is selfish and he worries that everything is over. The fortune-teller looks at him with disgust and distaste and hatred and so Alasdair leaves. The road West is rocky and the air is warm. The Uruk of Krugmar are kind and they welcome him and Alasdair is reminded of tents and fires and rainy days elsewhere. He does not speak to anyone. He starts to wonder if he has forgotten how. The turtles do not mind. Nobody here expects him to speak. -=+=- It does not last. Haense is easier this time. He can be silent behind the bar and he can afford to feed himself without spending someone else’s money. He hates that. Hates the surname and the titles and his family and his father. Roslin does not understand and he can not explain it. Why he is just Alasdair and never Lord Baruch. The fortune-teller softens and Alasdair softens. His dagger grows dull and he does not sharpen it again. His swords hang over the mantlepiece. Alasdair remembers how to sing. He remembers one perfect night on a hilltop with the fortune-teller in his arms and a song in his lungs and the golden sunset and the rain. He remembers falling asleep together in his tent and waking up together. He remembers the cold of the next night alone. -=+=- The fortune-teller will have to get married someday but best friends, they decide, can be like this. Alasdair does not think of his father and the King when he hides from the world with the fortune-teller in his arms. There is a bottle of honey in his bag for the fortune-teller’s tea, and two bars of lavender soap instead of one. They cook together and walk together and Alasdair knows that this will have to end and that thought breaks him but he can not force himself to leave. Alasdair is too young and too old when the world ends. He takes the fortune-teller sailing on the Loch and they say farewell. -=+=- Failor is golden. There is hard work and good food and rain and sun and the air is fresher than any air Alasdair has ever tasted. He builds and he works and they sing and pick flowers and Alasdair finds the words again. He asks nothing expects nothing and knows this will end and it will end poorly. This time the fortune-teller says yes. Alasdair cries until he laughs and then just holds the fortune-teller in his arms and tries to remind himself that this is real. Failor does not feel real. -=+=- Valdev is cold and bitter and Alasdair dislikes seeing his father’s name everywhere he goes, but he takes comfort in his secret love and in the knowledge that things will be different. The tavern is his now and he sings more, plays more. He is odd and people know this but the soup is hearty and the drinks are fresh and Alasdair listens well. Anuraj returns and Alasdair asks him for a ring. He cries with the fortune-teller puts it on and he cries at the fortune-teller’s wedding. His swords are faded and rusting. He gives up on ever wanting anybody or anything else and Anuraj brings him a child. Alasdair names him Ramsay Fabien. He has the same sea glass eyes Alasdair sees in the mirror and in his father’s portrait. Alasdair tries to promise he will be different but he knows he will not. -=+=- Alasdair is forty when he starts to lose focus again. The world fades and even fresh forest air does not fix it this time. He stands on the seashore and knows it is time. The fortune-teller gives him a ring of his own and Alasdair promises to write. He also promises to say goodbye before he leaves. This is the only promise he will break. LASDAIR HAS HAD HIS ship custom-built to look exactly like the one Anuraj showed him all those years ago with its grey sails and its round hull. He has planned this. All of this. He is meticulous and rigorous about his planning. Everything is just-so. The boat is designed for two but can be sailed by one and he is alone when he unties it and pushes it off from the docks. The sun is almost rising now and he needs to leave soon if he wants to beat the early morning fishermen. The sailing is as easy as breathing (sailing has always been as easy as breathing. it’s breathing that he has trouble with) and the winds are high once Alasdair gets out of the river and onto the open sea. He pins his maps down so they do not fly away and he sets a course eastward. He brings with him a battered lamp, a golden ring, a tambourine, and a box of ash. The water is easy and gentle in the small hours of the morning, and Alasdair has one final farewell. He pulls his dagger from its spot at his side and drops it into the depths. It has drawn more of his blood than any enemy’s blade and letting it sink to the bottom feels like release. Then the wind is in his hair and an early morning rain comes and spills golden drops onto his face. Alasdair cries with the sky. -=+=- IHYAAR IS NOT WHAT Alasdair expects it to be. He scatters Ardashir’s ashes and narrowly avoids a pair of theives in an alleyway. He purchases a jar of honey and a bar of lavender soap and a scarf made of golden silk. It is not the same but it is something. He does not take it off. He writes letters in every port he stops in. One to the fortune-teller, one to Marian, one to Ramsay, one to Roslin, one to Viviana.. the paper and ink are expensive and he does not know if they will make it back to Haense, but Alasdair does not break his promises. Mostly. There is a storm. Alasdair has not kept track of the days but his beard is overgrown and his hair is shaggy. It has been at least two months but maybe more like four. The waves are high, higher than he has seen before and he knows immediately that they will consume him. Alasdair lets it happen. -=+=- HERE IS A SHIP in the eye of the storm. Alasdair’s head is swimming and his mouth tastes of saltwater and the boat is half-sinking, but he catches a glimpse of silver-and-red hair at the helm and of grey sails above. The captain is aged by time and salt air but Alasdair looks at his sea-glass eyes and sees his own. There is someone with him. He calls out to them, waves his arms, and in a rush of saltwater and coarse old rope, Alasdair is on the decks of his father’s ship. He does not know what to say. He says nothing, just stares at him. (Almost seventy now, he thinks. If his maths are correct, but they usually aren’t.) Valdemar stares back and there is a moment where Alasdair thinks that he will not recognize him. He thinks that the scars and the tired eyes and the freckles are enough that his father will not know his own face. But then Valdemar says, “Al?” And that is enough. The day Alasdair Baruch leaves Haense, letters are distributed throughout the nation and across Aevos. They are directed as follows: To Fabian, my fortune-teller. Spoiler I do not know how I will do this without you. I have always known I think that I will have to but that does not mean I understood it. Please do not be angry with me for not saying goodbye. That is the only untrue thing I have said to you but I did not want to upset you. I have already upset you enough. I do not think I would have been able to stay if I had to face you again. I will miss you. Thinking about it makes me sick. I had the boat made for both of us. I can sail it myself but there will be too much space. There is a portrait of me in the attic. I do not want the children to forget me. Please keep Ramsay well taken care of. I know you would do it anyways but I still want to ask. If there is money to be had I will send some of it. I know it will not be the same. I have told him he can come with me if he ever wants to. Be with me until the end of time, Al. To Ramsay, my son. Spoiler I want to begin by saying I am sorry. I leave you the lotus music box and I leave you Tumble. He eats bamboo and likes to sleep. I hope these things are a better legacy than the one my father left me with. I know they probably are not. Roslin and Fabian will watch over you for me. You will have a family that loves you if you want one. Uncle Anuraj found you in a town of black stone in the mountains in the north. You should return someday and learn that part of where you came from. Do not fear to love or to feel pain. Sleep under the stars. Put honey in your tea. I am not dead and I love you more than I can ever say. I will be out here if you want to come find me someday. I will write when I can. Please write back. Your father, Alasdair. To Marian, my Valerie. Spoiler It has made me the luckiest father in the world to see you grow up. You are a better stronger more lovely daughter than I could have dreamed of and I am so proud of you. There is nothing I can say to fix what I will break by leaving but I hope you know that I love you. I leave you my swords. I hope they will just be decoration but they are beautiful and important to me so they should live on. The Cypress sword was given to me by Ser Ardashir when I became his Squire. A-Ukh-Niin was a gift from Kybal’Akaal who is the Rex of Krugmar. Take good care of them. If you do not wish to keep them give the Cypress sword to a man named Kefir. He will be in Haense. Tell him it was mine. Return A-Ukh-Niin to Kybal. Give Walter my love, Alasdair. To Viviana, my daughter. Spoiler I am sorry to leave you when you are so new to this world. There is nothing I can truly do to make up for it but I want you to know that I had no choice. I love you dearly and I always will. I have left you a bracelet. It has a story. It was given to me by a girl named Lorina when I was just a boy. I loved her dearly and we thought for many years that we would marry one another. I told her she reminded me of a pearl and so she made me a bracelet with a pearl in it so I could have her with me always. I broke her heart because I was young and a fool and did not know better. I kept the bracelet because I loved her still. Take it and along with it take my hopes that you will love someone as much as I loved her and as much as I love you. She lives on Lemon Hill. Visit her and tell her I will miss her. I will write as much as I can. Yours, Alasdair. To Lorina, my flower. Spoiler I am sorry to miss you. I came to Lemon Hill before I left but I could not find you and the time has come for me to go. I am leaving to find my father. There are not words to tell you how I feel so I will not try. I hope you are well. I have left your bracelet with Fabian’s daughter and told her to visit you. If she does not you must visit her. Her name is Viviana. She has red hair. Always yours, Alasdair. To Roslin, my sister. Spoiler I have already told you most of what I needed to say. I love you and I have been lucky to have you as my sister. I hope you and Arthur are happy and I hope your children at least know of their uncle Al. I will write to you of Father if I can find him. Al. [OOC NOTE] Spoiler Before anything else, I want to thank @ThanksChris, @critter, and @Quantumatics for the massive roles their personas have played in Alasdair’s life. I would not have been able to tell his story without them, and I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to play this character. It’s not often that I go for such genuine, serious stories, and I don’t know when I will again, but telling Alasdair’s has been an amazing experience. I can not thank you three, and everyone else that’s been part of his tale, enough. 22 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
critter 2473 Share Posted August 31, 2023 Tear-stained documents pile upon the tavernkeep’s table. (r) 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishy 1604 Share Posted September 1, 2023 4 hours ago, esotericas said: Hide contents Alasdair is twelve when he leaves Karosgrad with a bag and his bear and no idea where he is going. He is twelve and the road is long but his boots are good and the wind is in his hair and he has food for a few days’ walk. He finds a city of tents and farmers and a boy asks to duel him and Alasdair wins. The boy’s friend has white hair and white skin and she offers him a lemon drop as a prize. Alasdair refuses but he knows that there is something special here and so he stays. Upon Lemon Hill, a grizzled knight of forty recalls a bout from his youth in golden days long since past. Across him his opponent, a murmuring boy two years his elder, yet Morgan did not care. Morgan was ever eager to prove himself, certain of his own abilities, he had picked the beanpole Alasdair out of the crowd for that very reason. Clack, clack, clack. Each strike grew Morgan's confidence ever more. Their last bind had thrown Alasdair off kilter, an opening. The only thing that could get in Morgan's way now was himself. The boy of ten ducked in, sword overhead just as he'd seen in the manuscript. With practiced feet and a cocksure grin, he paced around, preparing to pirouette as he'd seen in the manuscript. Yet when Morgan launched his attack, he felt not his master stroke connect, but Alasdair's. The boy of twelve stood atop the platform while Morgan was sent into the dust and dirt, defeated. A friendship was born then, for Morgan had found someone to surpass in Alasdair, but the quiet attentions of the girl in white had sown the seeds of loathing in Morgan for what he could never be. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayalia 290 Share Posted September 1, 2023 "But when is he coming back?" Viviana Faustine d'Arkent Kortrevich was many things, but a fool was not one of them. All of eleven years old did the child recognize that the letter in her hands was proof that her Daid would not be coming home. He wouldn't be there for any further birthdays, no winters or new snows; he wouldn't see any of Leo's plays or share in her victory when she makes her very first clockworks trinket. There would be no more hugs or whispers or laughs and giggles. And he hadn't even come to say goodbye. The child crumples up the letter, forcing and scrunching it into a tight ball that gets thrown across her room into the furthest and dustiest corner, the bracelet tossed along with it. With a clink, the accessory bounces, then skitters to a stop, the pearl miraculously unbroken though newly scuffed. She turns away from the both of them, forcing herself onto her bed to burry beneath her growing collection of plushies, viciously chewing upon Pennepdragon's head. It's not enough. The youth doesn't cry - she hadn't cried in years, admittedly - but she does lay listless, depressed, for the few hours she goes undisturbed. It felt like she was laying, freezing once more, sick on that horrid couch in that horrid man's basement during that horrid month she'd been kept far from home. Abandoned. Alone. Eventually, there comes a knock on her door; her Papej, perhaps, or her borsa. The child lethargically sits up, pulls the soggy penguin from her clenched jaw, and turns to unlock her door and step outwards. The girl would one day retrieve the letter and the accompanying bracelet - maybe soon, maybe not, though inevitable and in the future - and undo what damage she had done as best she can. The bracelet would be revived and the pearl fixed, the letter would be smoothed out and kept safe in a solid box, emotions mended and hearts forgiven. But for now, the duo would gather dust, left behind and forgotten, just as she felt herself to be. 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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