(no subject)

[inthetapestry]

It was quiet, in the Temple, but not like this. That was a quiet of reverence, of hushed tones and quiet steps, the quiet of a large building full of people making an effort to be quiet. This is a quiet of stillness, of soft breeze and water and birds.

It's good, she thinks, to be out of the city today. Away from the hundreds of questions, of decisions, of details, of things. She needs the stillness. The time to adjust to the new way of thinking. Or at least to begin to adjust. Everything is changing. Some things are trivial, like the fact that it's still surprising to look down to her hands and see that the her sleeves are blue or green. Others are very serious, as it's even more surprising to wake up in the middle of the night and realize that Paul is there, is sleeping beside her, is staying.

The city is not a good place for reflection. This cottage is.

Jaelle stands in the doorway, her head against the frame, and watches the sunlight on the water, eyes half-closed against the brightness.

Comments

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"I guess it's a good idea to have a guest bed, but -"

Paul frowns at the door, thinking. As far as he knows, Fionavar doesn't really have moving vans. Which is kind of a pity.

"Is there a way to get one back to the city? And - I don't know, sell it?"

[first_of_dana]

You know, Paul, people moved furniture before the advent of the internal combustion engine. It's what horses with carts are for.

Jaelle blinks at him, and then she begins to laugh.

[pwyll_twiceborn]

Well, Paul has not had much time to get acquainted with the city's horse-and-cart dealerships!

He looks back at her, and says, trying not to sound affronted, "What?"

[first_of_dana]

He only sounds a little afronted.

"Well," she says, "I realize that we're both of us casting about for exactly what we'll do now, with the war over and Leila in white, but I had not thought to go into dealing second hand furniture."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

Paul stares at her a moment -

(Jaelle . . . did you just make a joke?)

- and suddenly breaks into a smile, and then an abrupt laugh of his own.

"Well - it's a start."

[first_of_dana]

Jaelle looks thoughtful.

"We should ask Aileron if he intends to redecorate. I'm sure he'd give us a fair price. Then again, I'm not sure he especially likes either of us, so perhaps not."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"He does not," Paul agrees, "but in the future, he may need us, all the same - so it seems likely that he'll give us a fair price regardless."

[first_of_dana]

"A very valid point," she says.

"I suppose there's also the cellar. If we wanted to store it. The bed, not furniture from the palace."

They might need it someday.

[pwyll_twiceborn]

They might.

And that's a thought so wonderful and absolutely terrifying at once that Paul immediately banishes it - they've got enough to think about at the moment.

Instead, he thinks about the cellar - more memories, there, though blessedly not his own. Only what he's heard from Kim, the story of a boy who wore a circlet and saw its light go out when it touched his brow.

"Yeah - that sounds like a good idea," he says, aloud. "We can put a lot of what we won't use down there."

[first_of_dana]

That is most definitely something to think about another day.

Jaelle rests her head on his shoulder, closes her eyes.

"It's strange. This is not anything I ever thought to do," she says. "Set up housekeeping. Store furniture. Have a cellar."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

Paul slips his arm around her waist.

"I thought to do it once," he says, aloud, as much to himself as to Jaelle.

"A long time ago, it feels like. Not like this."

[first_of_dana]

"Did you?" she says.

Every so often, she'll notice how much they still have to learn about one another. And be startled by it.

"What happened?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"It's something of a long story," Paul says, slowly.

But not one he's unable to tell anymore. And, probably, one that Jaelle deserves to hear.

"Do you want to hear it?"

[first_of_dana]

"Should I hear it?" she counters.

(This, too, is a way it has always been with them.)

[pwyll_twiceborn]

A moment passes.

Finally: "Yes. I think maybe you should."

[first_of_dana]

"Then I will listen," she says, simply.

[pwyll_twiceborn]

Paul looks down at her, and then, stepping aside, leads her over to the small table.

There are three chairs. Paul waits for Jaelle to sit before taking one of the others.

"Have you ever wondered why I chose to go to the Tree? Why it was me of all of us - why I took Aileron's death, as he would put it?"

[first_of_dana]

"Yes," she says. "But I had not really ever thought you would tell me.

"At times, I wondered if you knew yourself, which is probably unfair to you."

[pwyll_twiceborn]

A wry twist of his mouth. "Probably."

His gaze rests steadily on her. "The reason is simple enough. There was a woman named Rachel, whom I loved.

"She died the summer before we came to Fionavar. She died in a crash, in a car I was driving."

Jaelle won't know the word 'car'. It doesn't matter.

"That is as much of the story as Kevin, or anyone else, knew when I went to the tree."

[first_of_dana]

No, it doesn't. What matters is the statement of responsiblity.

"And am I to know more?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"Yes."

He wants to beg for a moment to compose himself, or think how to phrase it - but old habits, as always, die hard, and a moment is a moment of weakness.

So he goes straight on, abruptly: "Do you remember the night you told me that control mattered too much to me?

"I told you I had done that one to myself, and I had - Rachel told me very much the same thing on the night she died, when she said she had accepted someone else's proposal."

What was it he'd said? Something about a Niobe number - he can't remember the exact words. Which is, he suspects, a good thing.

"The irony, of course, is that just a few seconds later I lost control of the car in a way that led to her death.

"It was . . . difficult to accept that control had not, in fact, been in my hands; that I hadn't chosen, just for a moment, not to turn the car aside. The responsibility was mine, and that is why I went to the Tree."

[first_of_dana]

She lays one hand against his cheek -- the same cheek she struck the morning she took hom down from that Tree.

"And did you wish to die, or just to control the means by which you did so?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

He remembers.

Blood drawn for the Goddess. He doesn't begrudge it; the life was for Mornir. Dana he has always owed a debt.

"The Tree is a poor choice," he murmurs, "for those who wish for control in dying."

[first_of_dana]

"It is," she agrees.

"But did you know that, when you chose it?"

[pwyll_twiceborn]

"No. I knew -"

A small headshake. "I would like to say that I was thinking mostly that at least some good could come of it."

And that was part of it, he knows.

The other part is that it was simply the most painful and direct way available to him.