by Niabh » Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:35 am
Do you remember how I used to begin all the letters ‘dear sir’? And you would use any other name you could for me because you refused to accept Victoria? I did not know then that name meant Victory. So you refused to accept defeat, which is just like you. I rather liked Ellipsis. The space between two halves of a thought. I would not have much minded if we had kept to that.
And yet now you are my shunna, and you use the name my mother calls me, and I cannot remember how we ever reached that accord. It feels as though we have been there always.
I do not know why these thoughts come. They make me sad, as though I were looking back on something lost.
You know I do not dream, but I had a dream about you. I came to visit you at your house in Razasan, but when I came in, you had gotten yourself all tangled up in some ridiculous lace curtain, lying on the floor and flopping about like a fish in a net. I thought it was funny, but you said, stop laughing and get me out of this. So I took some shears and tried to cut you loose, but you would not keep still, and I ended up cutting you. I wanted to stop and work out some other way, but you insisted I go on. You became very sweary about it. I do not recall ever hearing you swear. It went on and on like that, me begging to stop, you insisting, and all the while cutting you up worse and worse. I woke with my stomach in knots because I could not remember if it really happened. Did it?
Betimes I forget where I am now. Rather, I forget everything but where I am not. I can never forget that I am not home. I know this is Myrken, but it might as well be anywhere. It is easy to forget where one is, with him. One of the things I knew I would miss about going home would be leaving him behind. Now I know that he will be there, too, which is some comfort. He was there before, though I did not know it, and he will always be there, and I shall never truly lose him. I may miss his company, but I must never miss it enough not to go back. That is the one thing he will not have of me. I hope he never asks for it.
I do not know where to go from here. Every day with him makes me want to stay another. That is why I must not stay.
I fear I have become the mad Lady Niall after all. Certes I sound it here, but it all makes sense once one has seen it. I suppose madness must make sense, too, when one is mad, otherwise one would know it for what it was at once, which I do. All of this is mad, but it is nothing like it was. I am getting better.
The one trait we two share, that we are never content unless we are busy, and if nothing keeps us busy, we find business, and woe betide the world then. It is more surprising that you be lonely. Here I thought you kept busy to avoid being lonely. One or the other, never both. I am less concerned for your loneliness when I know you are occupied, they are so much the same with you, but if you would have the raven, he is free to come as he wishes, as he ever was. Clever shunna, to ask for something already given and so get around the burden of a gift. Cruel, too, but that has always been the other side of your cleverness.
It is impossible to be lonely with him, but I have tried to keep myself busy by clearing the old place. The fire brought the roof down; it was only willow fronds under sod, not anything meant to last. I built it so that it would fall in on itself after I was gone and the grass would seal it up, only I meant for it to be empty by then. A great many things were ruined, but surprised I was to find your old letters. You built better than I did, my shunna, for they were not even singed. I may send them to you to keep, and some other things. There is little lost that cannot be replaced, except the horse, and even she can be replaced, poor creature. Back home we say, you will ride a hundred horses before you die. It is meant to help not to miss them so much when they go to the last pasture, but I always do. Horses live such short lives, you would think it would not matter. But you think the same of the way I see you, do you not?
I realize I keep asking you questions and you cannot answer.
You never answer any question worth the asking.
Anything can be magic if you're gullible enough.