Falls

The waves lapped gently at the shore and the chestnut mare watched them, her dark eyes distant and intense.

“Kvothe.”

There was no reaction from the woman. Her ears remained pitched forward, her expression as blank as the endless expanse of water. For all the response Kvothe offered, she might have been carved from red granite.

“Kvothe,” the voice was querulous now, quivering with a familiar note of need and fear. A grey-peppered muzzle stretched forward to brush the red Friesian’s scarred cheek, and her rigid posture finally thawed. The air pushed from Kvothe’s lungs with a soft sigh. Her neck curved gently around until one warm, melted-chocolate eye met the older creature’s weary (disgusted? It was there for an instant, a spark of revulsion and anger; something callous and cold) gaze. But Narene smiled then, and mute appeal took the place of whatever her granddaughter had glimpsed only a moment before.

“Come to bed,” the inky mare whispered, her age-coarsened voice somehow pleading and commanding in the same breath. “You’re still not well, wnuk, and it doesn’t help you to dwell on dreams that a fever planted in your mind. We’ll get some sleep, and in the morning I’ll sort out that tangled thicket you call a mane. That’ll make you feel right as rain again.” The whitening muzzle moved forward again, pushing into Kvothe’s shoulder gently but firmly, and the younger Friesian let herself be borne along by the tide of her grand-dam’s compelling presence.

They turned their backs to the sea, moving away from the beach and into the shelter of some nearby trees. Narene continued to chatter as they walked, her voice rising and falling in a rhythm as constant as the now-distant waves. But it was those that the chestnut heard loudest, her mind muting the constant stream of words into a dull murmur. There was something... Something that sound awakened in Kvothe, something that darted just beyond her reach like the silvery fish found in tidepools.

This is where we should look.

A flash of gold haunted the edges of her vision, dissolving into lengthening shadows when the red woman turned her head to greet it. Her babcia, unaware, ushered her beneath the drooping branches of a willow and tucked her into her side. Within moments, the old mare was at peace, but Kvothe — You’re tired. You can rest here, with me… — did not find the solace of sleep. Instead, her dreams found her in the waking world, tormenting her with glimpses of a shadowy, swamp-like forest and a soft pair of eyes, their colors mismatched. Tormenting her with the echo of a voice that was comforting despite its gruff cadence.

I was afraid…I thought you were running away from me…

“No — I could never.” Kvothe murmured, peeling away from the warmth of her companion’s body. She drifted back towards the sea slowly, like one who was sleepwalking — and in a sense, perhaps, she was. Narene insisted that these fragments that came to her were nothing more than fever dreams. That there had been no islands, no snow-dusted meadow or gloomy forest, no— gold-and-white coat marked by a strange mosaic of black patches that fell like shadows across his face, his leg. No warm smile , no kind voice with its soothing words.

If we hurry, I’m sure we could catch up to her.

“Let’s go,” the chestnut whispered in answer, barely noticing the chill of the water as it crept up her legs, tickled her belly, rose over her back. Barely noticing the weariness that weighted her body as she swam further and further from the mainland, abandoning cold and lonely reality to chase the warmth of her fever-dreams. And when she did finally notice it — when it finally occurred to her that she might die out there, far from land and the last remnants of her family — Kvothe was not afraid. Instead, a strange joy had lightened her heart for the first time since she could remember, and a certainty had settled into her bones. This was real; this was right.

And it was.

Even from a distance, the sharp silhouette of the island that she found was familiar; reassuring. The rocky beach was not, but the fiery woman left it behind her as soon as she’d rested, drifting gradually south and east. The moon’s dim silver glow guided her, outlining the faraway silhouettes of cramped trees. But long before Kvothe could reach them she froze, her fears and doubts returning to her abruptly. This place awakened a different sort of memory in her. One that filled her not with warmth and happiness, but coldness and dread. Something had ended here, and though she couldn’t remember it — though she couldn’t remember, the grief swallowed her regardless.

I’m sorry. He is - he’s gone.

Standing in the shadow of the mountain, Kvothe sank against the trunk of a nearby pine and began to weep with wild abandon. She cried as much for the loss of herself as for whatever she’d lost here; sobbed as much for the absence of memories tied to this grief as she did for the grief itself. And though her heart hurt more than she’d thought it possible to bear, a strange sort of gratitude arrived hand-in-hand with that pain. What she’d found here, it wasn’t only real — it was more real than anything she'd felt in a long time. More real than the seasons she’d spent drifting along in Narene’s wake, trying to claw her way through the murky shadows that illness had cast over her mind.

But Narene — if this was real, if her dreams were real — then the real lies were the ones that she'd… Kvothe’s knees buckled beneath her as the weight of the truth came crashing down. She laid there with her head pillowed by the same stone that’d once killed her son, tears still running freely as she began to breathe in great, tearing gasps.

So much had been taken from her, so much that she might never find again. And Narene had only — she'd only helped to bury it.