24 - Unseen
From the personal journal of Sir Godfrey Gwilym:
I will attempt to keep a record, lest the memories fall away from me again. I know not where they go when they are absent. I know only that I feel the unseen thread of their existence, even though I cannot follow its path. I am lost in the woods.
I was standing at the edge of Argynvostholt—so quickly it has gone to ruin—I know not for how long. My legs no longer feel the pains of stiffness or fatigue. They simply exist, and carry me where they will. So there I was, at the edge of Argynvostholt, standing sentry, staring out across the misty landscape, when a lone man walked boldly down the road and toward me.
I thought very little of his presence. I thought very little at all. I thought only that I was waiting for something, or perhaps someone, but this man was not for whom I waited. And so I stood, within an evening breeze which touched my bones, and continued there to wait.
I watched the man as he approached. I had the vague sense that this was unusual. People no longer came or went from here. Ravens flew overhead, but even those were seldom seen—or perhaps I only took no notice. What else had I missed? The fields were pastel yellow-green.
The man approached, and finally he reached me. He looked at me much harder than I looked at him.
“Godfrey?”
Was that who I was? Yes. I began to remember.
My face was resistant to expression, like my limbs had been when… when buried in the earth. Tangled with... I heard the clash of metal ringing faintly in my ears. But slowly it faded, and some other glimmer in the distance filtered through the veil upon my mind.
“Alek.”
A relative. A friend? My cousin. Our fathers were brothers. We played together in the afternoon sun, far, far from this place.
“Yes!” he said, brightening. His face was too pale. “It's been a long time! I suppose I won't ask how you're doing…” He meant it humorously, I thought. He had been an energetic boy.
“I am…” I could not remember. What was the feeling?
“I heard that you’d gone off to be a knight somewhere,” said the cousin. A pearly sense of wonder floated through the fog. Yes. A knight.
“Yes. A knight.” My voice scratched the air. “The Order…”
“Order of the Silver Dragon,” he said, glancing at the fortress behind me. His mustache twitched. “So this was where you ended up.”
A new feeling grasped me by the throat. A stronger thread of my existence tugged, but still I could not see its source. “My…” I stammered, a sense of dread arresting all my joints. Remember. “My lo…”
“Your lord?”
“My love!” It shattered me. “He was here.”
I forgot the presence of the man in front of me. I clawed through the wreckage of my ruined mind for scraps of what had been. Where was he now, this love of mine? I would not—could not—leave him behind. I am needed. I cannot find him. The dirt in my throat and my eyes and in the space behind my nose. Cold limbs pressed against my face. I could not breathe. Would not ever breathe again, but still I persisted. O… An oath.
A hand on my shoulder. “Godfrey.” Gone. They were all gone. This man was gone, to look at him. Just as dead as I was, more or less. His eyes, like a frosted pond, with shadows underneath.
“Sir Godfrey,” I said, clinging to something I had found again.
Alek laughed gently. “If you insist. I won't make you call me Captain or anything. Not now,” he added to himself.
Now. The charge. The rush of battle. There! There he was. His armor and his sword. His hand, covered by a gauntlet, but underneath it I remembered. I remembered the soft protrusion of a vein around his knuckle. His skin, I knew. The adrenaline of movement. The sweat on his brow, older now, the hairline carefully receding. All the more room to plant kisses. And still—and still—his face was lost to me. I could not remember that.
I grabbed ahold of Alek's arm. His words were seeping into me, swatting at the mist inside my mind. I needed more of them. Return my thoughts to me, my kin. “Tell me what happened.” He was there.
“I was there,” Alek solemnly agreed. “When I left home, before you, all I wanted was adventure. I would see the world.” Yes. The swords we gripped in children’s hands were wooden. They clacked together harmlessly in play. Alek—small fists on narrow hips, victorious grin—helped me back onto my feet.
“I met a man,” he continued. Had he said something in-between? A man—a man. Who was he?
“His name was Strahd.” No, that wasn’t it. That wasn’t right. It was…
“It was just a job, at first.” It was never. I became a knight because I’d dreamt it for myself. I wanted to protect all that was enchanting. What better master to serve than benevolent Argynvost? Even before I knew he was a shimmering silver dragon, a paradigm of myth and legend.
“He can be severe, but his convictions are founded.” When I met him, he was frowning, but I saw Fate smiling down on me. His lips… Gods, but he was beautiful, Argynvost’s commanding officer. I could wait forever if he would only glance my way. Turn around, my love. Turn your face to me and let me see it. I would know you once again. How could I forget?
“I don’t regret our mission,” Alek said. Nor do I, I thought. It was only unfortunate that our feet had carried us along opposing roads, our wooden playthings traded for sharp implements of war.
“It would seem you got the short end of the stick.”
I nearly thought my mind had fled my grasp—horror, when so much had since returned—but I found instead that it was reeling. Everything my cousin told me was a reflection of myself. His dour lord, his sacred mission, the deep abiding loyalty of love. He didn’t say as much, but it was written in his piercing gaze. Alek, do you truly know what you were fighting for? Were you too proud? Afraid? Or were you deaf to your own heart?
“Did I?” I replied. Where was Alek’s dark beloved now? Why was he out here, wandering the valley all alone, with shadows in his face where light should be?
I don’t know why my cousin walks this land, but I remember now why I am here. I felt the pull of that strong thread—the one which bound our hands together, when my love and I were wed. Not even death would part us. I felt his soul retreating from the resting world and knew that I must follow. Wherever he would go, he would not go alone. I dug myself out of the massive pit of weathered earth and fallen fellows. Some of them grabbed onto me and we crawled out of the mud together, to follow Vladimir back home.
“Thank you, cousin. For reminding me of myself.” I pulled him into an embrace. My shoulder crackled with the force of it. “I wish you all the best in your journey, but there is something that I must attend.”
I raced back to the fort, its crumbling stonework a welcome sight despite its disrepair. It was familiar, at last, not by rote but conscious memory. My Vladimir would be inside the place, I knew.
“Vladimir!” I called out, finding more of my own voice within my battered throat. My heels might have sprouted wings for the way I bounded up the stairs with such bright ease.
I followed that invisible line between our souls until I came upon a door. I grasped the handle, and the moths that might have been inside my ribs fluttered with anticipation. The door swung open, and there he was, seated on a high-backed chair, head resting on his hand.
“Vladimir.” I spoke his name with such relief.
Vladimir looked up. His neck cracked as he moved. “What?” he snapped. The glow within his undead eyes was dim and lackluster. It was then I noticed all the dust piled on his shoulders. Swaths of spider silk clung to his arms and legs, almost tethering him down. He had not moved in years… Perhaps decades. I did not know how long we had been lost.
He did not remember me.
“In all things, a silver lining,” I said gently.
Vladimir sneered in response. “I’ll believe that when I see it. Close the door.”
I pulled it shut by his request, and patted the old wood. There was little I could do for him, if he was in this state.
But all is not lost. This, I know. I remember days when he was tender—knights like us cannot exist without the desire to be kind, however deeply buried. I remember the sweet tears that glistened when he pledged himself to me, as I had done for him. To share in one another’s pain, and seek to protect each other from it, and ease each other of its searing bite.
Not to worry, my love. I will find a way.
* * *
[Ao3 Collection]
[prompt list by @syrips]
Update! It has been brought to my attention that "Vovochka" is generally only used for children or in jest. "Vova" is a more suitable nickname for Vladimir as an adult. (But this in particular is a bit on the awkward side to my English-speaking brain.) Anyway, I have updated the story, and I hope you enjoy this wonderful little nugget of information! ♡
"Vovochka" pet name inspired by this post.
(I'm a sucker for Russian diminutive suffixes.)
6 notes
·
View notes