lady_moon | (no subject)

She nods.

"Mary Anne's special. Papa swore he'd never marry again. Now look at him." Sorrow giggles at the tug-of-war. "Yes. He was very fortunate in his life. Wealthy, good breeding, a wonderful family. I went to him one night, though, and he handled his sorrow in such an amazing way..."

He blushes at that.

"Did he," Miniver mumbles, hiding behind his hair.

It takes her a moment.

Then she blushes deeply.

"Not like that!"

"Like what then?" he asks, squeaking a bit, giggling.

"His child died," she explains with an embarrassed grin. "It was a time of terrible mourning for him. I sat with him for days, followed him about, but he refused to pause for me. Fortune went about his business as if nothing had happened, and when the moment finally came when I forced him to face his loss, he wept, but he didn't break. It was quite remarkable."

"...oh," he whispers quietly at that. D'Artagnan finishes his meal and flutters up into the rafters before Miniver can catch him and make him stay, and no amount of coaxing will get him down. He's full and happy and wants a nap.

Miniver, meanwhile, is alone again, and fidgets. "Damn bird," he mumbles, forcing Fortune out of his mine. Had to know Fortune would never be a friend to anyone like him anyway.

"You should talk to him," she says with a knowing smile. "But beware. He's a rake. A terrible flirt and can be as smooth as the best whiskey."

"I like whiskey. And I wouldn't mind making a friend who isn't -- no offence, Sorrow, but -- who isn't something totally depressing."

He gets bored of his life sometimes, frankly. Misery becomes monotonous. And he misses his lovely Draco, with his black humor and cold, beautiful eyes.

"You're close to me all the time anyway."

"Yes, I am. Maybe tomorrow you can spend time with him. He's one of the most cheerful of us. Sometimes, I think it's a disease with him," she giggles.

He nods, and lays down on his bed.

"She's going to really keep me here, isn't she?"

Sorrow sits down on the bed.

"For a little while. It's for the best, really. Draco..." She shakes her head. "It'll all work out how it should."

"How? Really, Sorrow, how? You hurt him so much when you took away his wand, and now me... and it's both of us now. What did I ever do to any of you? What did either of us? Can't he have learned what he needed to learn just being with me? He was so... different! And how was it not enough? He... you know he hugged me... on his own... not like... not like he used to, but just... just because I was moping. Usually he'd yell at me for doing that. But he hugged me. What if this makes him bitter again? What if he decides he doesn't need me after all?"

"Of course it hurt. It was supposed to. But I have to ask why did it hurt? The answer isn't very comforting. We took away his control, his power. It has nothing to do with a true hurt and everything to do with a loss of what made him think he was better than everyone else."

Sorrow's voice is soft, gentle, full of unspoken understanding.

"It was always both of you. Did you think Gorlim was the only person Ruin was working on when that mess happened? No. It was also Mary Anne, Námo, Random -- everyone in his life because his life touched theirs."

She chews her lip lightly, not wanting to go into this too deeply with Miniver, because she doesn't think he could handle it.

"He can't learn it from you, Miniver, because he doesn't... feel for you what you wish he would. Hugging you, offering comfort? A wonderful step. Now we take you away from him and he has to reevaluate what he has with you. Why he misses you... if he misses you."

"He's not going to come for me, is he?"

"How could he?" she asks him.

"Does he even want to?"

"He doesn't even know you're missing yet," she reminds him. "You could have simply gone off with Robbie for an evening, after all."

"But I didn't. Anyway... will he? Tell me, Sorrow. Explain this to me. Please."

"In his way."

Sorrow looks down at him.

"You fell in love with someone who could never return the feelings as ardently as you feel them. He isn't a hero, Miniver, and he never will be. What we're trying to do isn't about making him into this great, noble man."

"I know. I know that. But -- what is it, then? And why bring me into it?"

"You're a by-product. A means to an end," she says sadly. "Something he has that he wants, and like a naughty child, we've taken that away from him."

Miniver curls up a little on the bed.

"No one else is going to notice I'm gone," he whispers, his voice strangled. "No one else is going to know or give a damn if I never come back. Robbie will assume I'm with Draco, and no one else will give it more thought than that. And even he... no one's going to come looking for me." Just like no one in his world filed a missing persons report when he didn't come to work for a week. His absence was an inconvenience quickly solved by hiring some other luckless bastard to fill his place.

He's never mattered enough to anyone to be worth saving. Even now he's nothing more that a favourite toy snatched away.

"Even when Draco and Robbie realise you aren't with either of them, they could never make it here on their own," she points out. "They aren't able to walk worlds."

But the fact that they couldn't find him isn't the point.

The point is... he doesn't expect anyone to look.

He's on a strange world with strange people. No way out, no one trying to help him, no value but as a bribe to some spiritual reawakening in which his role is ultimately to be forgotten.

He bites his lip, blinking back tears.

Sorrow's heart hurts for him, as it does for everyone where he is emotionally.

"We're all but ghosts wandering down paths. Occasionally, you become real for just a short while and you touch and feel and love and remember. You're cared about. You'll be missed. Moon loves you... Robbie loves you... Draco loves you, even if it isn't as you wish he would... and others will come along who will love you, too."