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“i’ll say i love you, and mean it this time”
Oh, when my weight left the room, did you take a deep breath?
I stole a beer, drove home; there was only one left
And I wrestle the feeling you're still thinking about that
Wide awake in your room, just seethin' about that
The taste of forever leaves a foul taste in the back of her mouth. Bitter, metallic, almost a tangy, putrid taste. Over-ripe in nature, pungent in feeling. But who was she if not her mother’s child?
Selfish, the world revolving around her. A fatherless child, searching for the meaning she never received. The rancorous flavor of jealousy and rage gnawing at her, coloring her choices. To keep him, would she damn him for an eternity? She would sentence an innocent man to a gallows of her own design, shackled to her for the rest of the plane’s existence, and maybe beyond. Long after her mother, her brothers, the world as any of them had known it, he would remain, a stronger fixture then than he ever was for her.
The guilt permeated through her immediately. To see the weight of her choice, to feel in her own hands what that could mean? The weight of such a choice, again, placed in the palms of one who was no less a child than the day he left. To strip a man of his dignity, his existence, his very humanity, to appease a spoiled child.
And that’s what she was, wasn’t it? A child. Searching for her meaning, who she was, what her place in the world was. Truly, what would the passage of time mean to her, in no less than five years? Would she always be this creature? Small, scared, fragile?
If she was honest with herself, she would tell him. But coward she was, she always wrote it. She remembers the first letter she wrote, days after her 14th birthday.
It started with, “Papa, I miss you,” and ended with apologies for a wrong she felt she must have done. By age 19, the letters were angry, with “You left me,” being the recurring, scornful messages. By 25, she had stopped writing them entirely. What was the point? Where do you send letters to a man who no longer exists?
And now, he exists. Again, a real, tangible entity in her orbit, and she cannot even bring herself to say it.
She would move heaven and earth to know him, to have him know her, to be loved. To share with him her childhood, to get a glimpse at what Fate had stolen from her. She would always be chasing that dream, that fantasy, the illusion of wholeness.
When I make my flight, I'm the devil
But when I stay the night, then we drink
And we stay up and fight 'bout the childhood lie
That we both had the courage to leave
She barely remembers those first years of service to Shiv. She had to have been a right shit paladin. Endless nights of bottomless drinks, fading in and out of memory, women whose names she barely thought to ask. She remembers the looks of disappointment Daarian often shot her, when she would crawl home, hungover, barely together, to drop off books and trinkets she had gotten for him or D’amos on her travels.
She remembers the one time she ever raised her voice to D’amos. That memory will always ring as clear as day to her. She remembers being lost, halfway through a bottle of something-or-another, as D’amos, young and naive, remarked how he missed Pa, and wished he had the time with him that Daarian and she had gotten.
Eudora will never forget the venom that spilled from her lips, the anger, the rage, that poured from her as she reminded D’amos that she was the one who had never left, and that their father had abandoned, no, forsaken them.
She left for six months after that. Not a word home; no letters, no travels, no apologies. Too ashamed to say anything, too prideful to return home with her tail tucked between her legs.
I'm willing and able
If you wanna kick this rock around
If you've got a bone to pick with me
If you've got a flag, plant it in the ground
Oh, I'll stay here 'til morning
Oh, we can fight like we used to fight
Bony-limbed, red-faced, and teary-eyed
Under the glow of the TV light
I'd be willing and able
It’s her face, she realizes. Her mother hates her because she is him. In that cell, she sees herself there, but gaunt-faced, with older, olive-toned skin, and unkept salt-and-peppered hair.
In those moments, she is a bony, lanky-limbed little girl, with messy snow-colored hair in a curly bob, half tucked behind her ears, with her rust-red tunic embroidered with little dragons curling over it, silver bracelets jangling in the wake of her movements. In those moments, she sees a younger Seren, before time, and Traekin, took their toll. She sees the mischievous grin, the dimple on his left cheek, his dark blue eyes that crinkled at the edges when he laughed, his mess of inky curls shaking in time with his shoulders, the pink hues of his cheeks as the sun changed his skin.
She was of two minds in those moments. The little girl, the core of who she is, wanted to run to him, to fling herself in his arms, to weep, and scream that she knew her Pa would never choose to leave her, that she did nothing wrong, that he loved her. The older, jaded, mean-spirited woman who stood in her place wanted to break his nose for not trying harder to stay, to fight against Traekin, to not find a way.
How dare he? How dare he stand before her now, whole, and not torn to his knees at seeing his mirror image reflected back at him?
She realizes, with a start, in that dirty, grungy cell, what it is she feels. Scared, shitless, that maybe she is worthy, is lovable, is worth it all. That is was nothing ever wrong with her, and that in every life, in every timeline, in every instance of existence, Seren wanted to be there; her Pa wanted to be there. So try as she might to feign like she didn’t miss him, she wants to, no, needs to know the man who stood before her.
Look at you leavin' again; it's all you know how to do
Go ahead, take the last of the drinks; the world belongs to you
They all say you're a light; all I see is a shadow
And I'll see you again in six months when you need your next song
When he offers to die, to be undone, to prevent becoming a vessel, all she heard was that she was easy to leave. How dare he? Fuck his feelings, fuck him, fuck everything, she has a score to settle, a grudge to bear. In those moments, her snap decision, her damnation of him, is the easiest choice she has ever made. And now, to look at what she has nailed to him, sentenced him to become, it haunts her. When the Assault on the Slate occurs, and she promises him to come back alive, she means it half-heartedly. There is a part of her, a fickle, scared part of her, who half-expects to die, or him to leave, or the worst to happen. She thinks about running away, about leaving it all behind. She says as much, in her half-hearted, “I’ll try,” in response to him.
'Cause if I call you out, I'm an asshole
But I tell the truth when I drink
So come home; let's fight 'bout the childhood lie
We don't care what the other one thinks
Eudora, standing before Seren, is scared. A child, a firing squad of his own making, staring at him, and she can tell he is holding his tongue; sparing her, even now, of the repercussions of her choice she made for him.
She wishes he would scream, would yell, would tell her he hates her, anything other than those eyes, brighter than they were in her memory, staring at her with pity and understanding.
So she smokes, takes the edge off, dances on the edge of just enough nicotine to make her almost sick, buzzed and jittery, pushing the envelope of just how much her body can take, always toeing the line. She pretends she doesn’t care; for her it’s survival, it’s the veneer that keeps her safe.
I'm willing and able
If you wanna kick this rock around
If you've got a bone to pick with me
If you've got a flag, plant it in the ground
Oh, I'll stay here 'til morning
Or we can fight like we used to fight
Bony-limbed, red-faced, and teary-eyed
Under the glow of the TV light
She stares at him, and he has to know. With how perceptive he is, he surely cannot miss it. She stares at him, and sees every moment of her childhood, before it ended, and she holds it in her hands. She feels the warmth of the Summers, and remembers the heat of his forge, and how softly he would explain his craft to her, him guiding her little hands through the motions, as they laughed about her blunders, her novice attempts.
Oh, I wish you could know me
And I wish I could know you much more sometimes
Wish I could do nothin' with you
Sit in the yard while the day dies
Leave it all on the table
And I'll say, "I love you," and mean it this time
Say, "I'm sorry,” for everything else
If we found a way to the other side
She knows she is a flighty bastard. Knows that getting closer makes her squirrelly, makes her shove people away. She is open, shares that the door is glued close, nailed shut, sealed off. Until Zenith hits her life like a crowbar, prying board by board into her world, until the door creaks open. Without her, Eudora knows she would have told Seren to kick rocks, and it would have been the biggest mistake of her life.
She wishes he just knew her. Her favorite color being wine red, her favorite food being fresh baked bread, that she prefers silvers to golds, that she never straightened her hair because his curls were so apart of him, that for weeks after he left she lived in total silence, that she stole his clothes when Ma tried to throw them out, that she took the rings he made and never let them go. She always kept him with her.
Her most vivid memory of him was the five of them, all laid upon their backs, the stars twinkling above, as her Ma pointed out patterns, with Daari and D’amos giggling at the shapes, and all she can remember is how content she felt. How warm, how alive.
When Eudora sees Seren, after they lay Belia to rest, she almost says it. She almost tells him she loves him, almost pours all of herself into it. Almost apologizes to him for removing his very humanity to have her father. Almost apologizes for seeing no other way forward.
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
I'd be willing and able
If you're willing, I'm able
Eudora has all of eternity, at least, to tell him.