Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2004-04-08 01:57 am
edenfalling) wrote2004-04-08 01:57 am
Entry tags:
[Fic] "Bluebell," parts 7, 8, and 9 -- original
And here we are... the last of it.
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Chapter Seven: A Peculiar Request
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Six days later, Bluebell stopped near the border of Florissant, not wanting to arrive home in the middle of the night. She unsaddled and brushed the horse and heated a bit of thin soup for supper. The ancient pines around the clearing blocked her view of the stars, leaving the fire her only source of light. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into the flames after eating, wondering what her family would say when she came home.
A noise jolted her from her daydreams and she looked around wildly. "Don't worry," said a familiar voice. "It's only me." The fox crept into the firelight.
Bluebell jumped up. "Fox!" she cried. "Where have you been? I thought you were following me when I left Tourmaline, but you were gone when I stopped that evening."
"I was taking care of various unimportant things. I came to see that you were home, and to ask a favor."
"I'll be home tomorrow morning. What favor?"
The fox looked away. "I want you to kill me," it muttered.
"What?"
The fox looked embarrassed. "I want you to kill me. That's all."
"That's all?" said Bluebell. "How could I kill you! You're my friend! I couldn't hurt you." Bluebell walked around the fire and knelt beside the fox. "Why do you want me to do something so awful?"
"Ah. That is, indeed, the question."
"Don't start that again. Answer me."
The fox sighed. "Bluebell, I'm the fox who helps princes find the firebird. I've done that for centuries. At the end of the quest, after they marry the princess, I go off to the mountains, live another twenty years, and wait for the whole business to begin again. Forever.
"I've asked several princes to kill me, but they refused. I stopped asking a long time ago. But I'm tired, and I want to stop." It looked at her. In the firelight, its eyes were very large and dark. "I want you to kill me."
Bluebell was silent for a while.
"Fox," she asked presently, "if you die, will that be the end of quests for the firebird, the horse that can outrun the wind, and the princess of the ivory tower?"
"I have no idea. I've never died before."
"Oh." Bluebell thought some more. "And what happens to you when you die? You're not a normal fox, after all."
"I don't think it matters much. A fox is a fox, and death is death."
"It matters to me. You're my friend."
They sat in silence for several minutes, not looking at each other. Bluebell wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the needle-covered earth. "What will you do if I won't?" she asked.
"I'll go live in the mountains until a new prince is born to find the firebird. Then I'll find the king who'll capture the bird, the king who'll own the horse, and the princess in the tower, so I know where to take the prince. When the bird steals fruit from his father, I'll wait for him to begin his quest and I'll stop him on the road to offer advice. When the quest is over, I'll wait in the mountains for the next prince. Again. Forever."
"Oh." Bluebell looked at her knees. "If you don't ask the princes anymore, why did you ask me?"
The fox looked away. "Because you were my friend," it said, then paused and shook its head. "No. This is not true. I asked because you changed things. You showed the prince he was a thief even though it wasn't his fault. You didn't love him at first sight, and you came home even though you started to like him. He gave you the horse and freed the firebird. None of those things ever happened before."
The fox coughed quietly into its paws. "And I thought if you changed all that, you might let me rest." It paused again. "I'm sorry. It was a terrible thing to ask."
It stood and walked into the pines.
"Fox, wait," said Bluebell. The fox turned; its eyes glittered from the shadows. "I don't know what to do. I want to help you, but I'm not a murderer. I don't want anyone else to be the princess of the ivory tower, even if it was all right for me in the end, but I can't kill you. And I don't even know that anything would change if you died. It might keep on, only with a different fox."
"This is true," said the fox. "I can't help you. You know what I want."
Bluebell hugged her knees fiercely, staring blankly into the fire. Finally, she looked into the fox's glittering eyes. "I can't. I can't kill you" she said. "It would feel like murder to me, and I can't convince myself that anything good would come of it. I'm sorry."
"I see. Goodbye, Bluebell."
"Goodbye, fox."
The fox walked slowly into the shadows beneath the pines. Bluebell felt tears on her face and rubbed at them with her sleeve. It was wrong to cry when a friend left. It cast bad luck on the journey.
"Fox," she called as it vanished into the dark, "fox, ask Ivan. He let the firebird go."
She couldn't tell if it heard.
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Eight: In Which Farewells Are Taken
---------------------------------------------
The next morning, Bluebell rode into her father's castle over a newly paved moat (the water, however, was already becoming green again). In the stables she greeted her old friends, unsaddled the horse that could outrun the wind, and put it into a loose box with fresh water and grain. The stable master ran his hands admiringly over the horse's legs as she left and was far too preoccupied to tell anyone of her return.
Inspired by his lack of attention, Bluebell decided to surprise her parents. She sneaked into the castle, hushing servants all the way to her old room in the north wing (the castle had two wings, neither of which was particularly imposing) where she washed and changed into a clean dress. Feeling more herself, she went to find her father and mother.
King Dunstan and Queen Eleanor were in the room behind the great hall, once again discussing taxes with their ministers. This time, Bluebell opened the door. The ministers stared at her, shocked, and her parents rushed to hug her.
"Bluebell!" her father cried. "We didn't think you were coming home."
"We missed you so much," said her mother. "What happened with that horrible prince and the king of Murlee? How did you get away?"
Bluebell explained that Prince Ivan was really very nice once you got to know him and that he had rescued her from the king of Murlee (who was inarguably horrible). He had also kept the horse that could outrun the wind away from the unpleasant king of Athimand, and set the firebird free. She had promised to visit him in the spring and she wanted to bring him to Florissant for the summer, if nobody minded.
Nobody did mind, and come spring, Bluebell packed a basket (much larger than the one she had brought to Tourmaline the first time) and rode west on the horse that could outrun the wind (which she called Handsome, because it wasn't). Ivan was very glad to see her and his parents only hinted at marriage three times a day.
A week after she arrived, Bluebell and Ivan went for a walk in the woods. They talked of this and that, and after an hour, Bluebell asked him if he had seen the fox since she had left last autumn.
Ivan looked away. "Yes," he said finally. "I did see the fox again. Once. Why do you ask?"
Bluebell pulled her hand from Ivan's. "It came to me just before I reached home. It asked me to kill it. I told it to ask you."
"Ah."
They walked in silence for a minute, not looking at each other. The afternoon sun slanted golden-green through the trees, falling thinly to the ground. Birds flew between the branches, flitting away from the path, and the wind rustled gently through the young leaves. In the distance, a deer crashed through the underbrush.
"It asked me, too," said Ivan.
Bluebell stopped. "And did you?" she asked.
He looked at the ground and scuffed his boots through last year's dead leaves. "Yes."
"How could you?"
"I didn't have any choice!" said Ivan. "I promised the fox a favor after I'd ignored its advice with the firebird and the horse. It called in the favor and asked me to kill it."
Bluebell turned away. "You could have said no," she said.
Ivan seized her shoulders and tried to turn her to face him; Bluebell resisted. "No, I could not have said no! I broke my word to the fox. I broke my word to the kings of Murlee and Athimand. I know how horrible they were, but I gave my word. And I let you lie by implication to my father, to save my inheritance.
"I'm a thief and a liar and an oath-breaker many times over, and I am never going to break my word again." He lowered his voice. "It wanted to die so much. It cried, Bluebell. I didn't know foxes could cry."
Bluebell turned slightly. "How did you kill it?"
"A knife to the heart. It was as fast and clean a death as I could manage." He looked at his boots. "I buried it in the woods. I can take you there, if you'd like."
"I want to see the grave," said Bluebell.
Ivan dropped his hands from her shoulders. "Follow me," he said. They took the left fork in the branching path and walked several minutes without speaking.
"Here," said Ivan, stopping in front of an irregular granite slab. "Under there."
The stone was very stark and lonely, resting in a bed of brown leaves and needles with no bushes or flowers nearby. Ivan had scratched a rough picture of the fox's head onto a flat area of the rock.
Bluebell walked back along the path to a small clearing where daisies and thistles fought tiny pines and choking grasses for sunlight. She picked a handful of greenery and flowers. Ivan watched silently as she laid the flowers on the stone. "Goodbye, fox," she said. "Sleep well."
She rubbed her eyes and reached for Ivan. They held each other's hands tightly as they walked back to the castle in the fading afternoon sun.
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Nine: And Last
---------------------------------------------
Bluebell and Ivan married the next spring, and when Ivan's father died they ruled Tourmaline wisely and well. They had two sons and two daughters who had no destinies, and when a glittering scroll arrived at their third daughter's naming, they burned it unopened, preferring not to know what it foretold. But destinies seemed rarer as the years went on. Handsome, (the horse that could once outrun the wind) became slow in its age, and the firebird was seldom seen, even in the distant south.
When their eldest son was eighteen, Bluebell and Ivan left him to manage Tourmaline while they visited family in Florissant. They spent a pleasant summer catching up on various relatives and old friends, but as the season drew to a close, Bluebell often stood on the balcony of their room, looking east to Lookfar Mountain.
Ivan asked her about this one evening.
"I wonder what became of the ivory tower," she said. "Did the destiny stop when the fox died, or is the tower still waiting for a new princess?"
"We can go look," said Ivan, crossing his arms over her chest and drawing her to him.
"I'm not sure I want to," said Bluebell. "It seems safer not to know."
"No, we should see for ourselves. Let's go tomorrow." Ivan hugged his wife tightly. "But now we should sleep."
Bluebell smiled, turning to kiss him. "This is true," she said, and they went inside.
The next morning they rode east with several of their nieces and nephews to search for the ivory tower, following the faint remnants of the trail Bluebell's family used to visit her, many years ago. But the trail ended in an empty clearing.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" asked Ivan.
"Yes," said Bluebell. "I spent five years in that tower. I remember." But the clearing held no signs of a tower, not even a foundation. The nieces and nephews searched for several hours, and in various nearby clearings, in case Bluebell's memory was not as good as she thought, but they found nothing. By mid-afternoon they gave up and went home.
"What do you suppose happened to the tower?" Bluebell asked Ivan that evening. "Did it vanish when the fox died? Was it ever truly there? Or did it simply move elsewhere, waiting for a new princess and prince to go through the story again? Did we change anything at all?"
"I don't know," said Ivan. "I suppose it doesn't matter much in the end. The story worked out well enough for us, and it's out of our hands anyway. Go to sleep, Bluebell."
She shivered and clung tightly when he hugged her. He fell asleep holding her, but Bluebell stared into the dark a long time, remembering the fox and thinking about their third daughter and her unread scroll.
---------------------------------------------
The End
---------------------------------------------
Back to chapters 5 and 6
---------------------------------------------
I would say something more, but I'm in a curious floaty headspace and coherence is not coming to me now.
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Seven: A Peculiar Request
---------------------------------------------
Six days later, Bluebell stopped near the border of Florissant, not wanting to arrive home in the middle of the night. She unsaddled and brushed the horse and heated a bit of thin soup for supper. The ancient pines around the clearing blocked her view of the stars, leaving the fire her only source of light. She wrapped her arms around her knees and stared into the flames after eating, wondering what her family would say when she came home.
A noise jolted her from her daydreams and she looked around wildly. "Don't worry," said a familiar voice. "It's only me." The fox crept into the firelight.
Bluebell jumped up. "Fox!" she cried. "Where have you been? I thought you were following me when I left Tourmaline, but you were gone when I stopped that evening."
"I was taking care of various unimportant things. I came to see that you were home, and to ask a favor."
"I'll be home tomorrow morning. What favor?"
The fox looked away. "I want you to kill me," it muttered.
"What?"
The fox looked embarrassed. "I want you to kill me. That's all."
"That's all?" said Bluebell. "How could I kill you! You're my friend! I couldn't hurt you." Bluebell walked around the fire and knelt beside the fox. "Why do you want me to do something so awful?"
"Ah. That is, indeed, the question."
"Don't start that again. Answer me."
The fox sighed. "Bluebell, I'm the fox who helps princes find the firebird. I've done that for centuries. At the end of the quest, after they marry the princess, I go off to the mountains, live another twenty years, and wait for the whole business to begin again. Forever.
"I've asked several princes to kill me, but they refused. I stopped asking a long time ago. But I'm tired, and I want to stop." It looked at her. In the firelight, its eyes were very large and dark. "I want you to kill me."
Bluebell was silent for a while.
"Fox," she asked presently, "if you die, will that be the end of quests for the firebird, the horse that can outrun the wind, and the princess of the ivory tower?"
"I have no idea. I've never died before."
"Oh." Bluebell thought some more. "And what happens to you when you die? You're not a normal fox, after all."
"I don't think it matters much. A fox is a fox, and death is death."
"It matters to me. You're my friend."
They sat in silence for several minutes, not looking at each other. Bluebell wrapped her arms around her knees and stared at the needle-covered earth. "What will you do if I won't?" she asked.
"I'll go live in the mountains until a new prince is born to find the firebird. Then I'll find the king who'll capture the bird, the king who'll own the horse, and the princess in the tower, so I know where to take the prince. When the bird steals fruit from his father, I'll wait for him to begin his quest and I'll stop him on the road to offer advice. When the quest is over, I'll wait in the mountains for the next prince. Again. Forever."
"Oh." Bluebell looked at her knees. "If you don't ask the princes anymore, why did you ask me?"
The fox looked away. "Because you were my friend," it said, then paused and shook its head. "No. This is not true. I asked because you changed things. You showed the prince he was a thief even though it wasn't his fault. You didn't love him at first sight, and you came home even though you started to like him. He gave you the horse and freed the firebird. None of those things ever happened before."
The fox coughed quietly into its paws. "And I thought if you changed all that, you might let me rest." It paused again. "I'm sorry. It was a terrible thing to ask."
It stood and walked into the pines.
"Fox, wait," said Bluebell. The fox turned; its eyes glittered from the shadows. "I don't know what to do. I want to help you, but I'm not a murderer. I don't want anyone else to be the princess of the ivory tower, even if it was all right for me in the end, but I can't kill you. And I don't even know that anything would change if you died. It might keep on, only with a different fox."
"This is true," said the fox. "I can't help you. You know what I want."
Bluebell hugged her knees fiercely, staring blankly into the fire. Finally, she looked into the fox's glittering eyes. "I can't. I can't kill you" she said. "It would feel like murder to me, and I can't convince myself that anything good would come of it. I'm sorry."
"I see. Goodbye, Bluebell."
"Goodbye, fox."
The fox walked slowly into the shadows beneath the pines. Bluebell felt tears on her face and rubbed at them with her sleeve. It was wrong to cry when a friend left. It cast bad luck on the journey.
"Fox," she called as it vanished into the dark, "fox, ask Ivan. He let the firebird go."
She couldn't tell if it heard.
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Eight: In Which Farewells Are Taken
---------------------------------------------
The next morning, Bluebell rode into her father's castle over a newly paved moat (the water, however, was already becoming green again). In the stables she greeted her old friends, unsaddled the horse that could outrun the wind, and put it into a loose box with fresh water and grain. The stable master ran his hands admiringly over the horse's legs as she left and was far too preoccupied to tell anyone of her return.
Inspired by his lack of attention, Bluebell decided to surprise her parents. She sneaked into the castle, hushing servants all the way to her old room in the north wing (the castle had two wings, neither of which was particularly imposing) where she washed and changed into a clean dress. Feeling more herself, she went to find her father and mother.
King Dunstan and Queen Eleanor were in the room behind the great hall, once again discussing taxes with their ministers. This time, Bluebell opened the door. The ministers stared at her, shocked, and her parents rushed to hug her.
"Bluebell!" her father cried. "We didn't think you were coming home."
"We missed you so much," said her mother. "What happened with that horrible prince and the king of Murlee? How did you get away?"
Bluebell explained that Prince Ivan was really very nice once you got to know him and that he had rescued her from the king of Murlee (who was inarguably horrible). He had also kept the horse that could outrun the wind away from the unpleasant king of Athimand, and set the firebird free. She had promised to visit him in the spring and she wanted to bring him to Florissant for the summer, if nobody minded.
Nobody did mind, and come spring, Bluebell packed a basket (much larger than the one she had brought to Tourmaline the first time) and rode west on the horse that could outrun the wind (which she called Handsome, because it wasn't). Ivan was very glad to see her and his parents only hinted at marriage three times a day.
A week after she arrived, Bluebell and Ivan went for a walk in the woods. They talked of this and that, and after an hour, Bluebell asked him if he had seen the fox since she had left last autumn.
Ivan looked away. "Yes," he said finally. "I did see the fox again. Once. Why do you ask?"
Bluebell pulled her hand from Ivan's. "It came to me just before I reached home. It asked me to kill it. I told it to ask you."
"Ah."
They walked in silence for a minute, not looking at each other. The afternoon sun slanted golden-green through the trees, falling thinly to the ground. Birds flew between the branches, flitting away from the path, and the wind rustled gently through the young leaves. In the distance, a deer crashed through the underbrush.
"It asked me, too," said Ivan.
Bluebell stopped. "And did you?" she asked.
He looked at the ground and scuffed his boots through last year's dead leaves. "Yes."
"How could you?"
"I didn't have any choice!" said Ivan. "I promised the fox a favor after I'd ignored its advice with the firebird and the horse. It called in the favor and asked me to kill it."
Bluebell turned away. "You could have said no," she said.
Ivan seized her shoulders and tried to turn her to face him; Bluebell resisted. "No, I could not have said no! I broke my word to the fox. I broke my word to the kings of Murlee and Athimand. I know how horrible they were, but I gave my word. And I let you lie by implication to my father, to save my inheritance.
"I'm a thief and a liar and an oath-breaker many times over, and I am never going to break my word again." He lowered his voice. "It wanted to die so much. It cried, Bluebell. I didn't know foxes could cry."
Bluebell turned slightly. "How did you kill it?"
"A knife to the heart. It was as fast and clean a death as I could manage." He looked at his boots. "I buried it in the woods. I can take you there, if you'd like."
"I want to see the grave," said Bluebell.
Ivan dropped his hands from her shoulders. "Follow me," he said. They took the left fork in the branching path and walked several minutes without speaking.
"Here," said Ivan, stopping in front of an irregular granite slab. "Under there."
The stone was very stark and lonely, resting in a bed of brown leaves and needles with no bushes or flowers nearby. Ivan had scratched a rough picture of the fox's head onto a flat area of the rock.
Bluebell walked back along the path to a small clearing where daisies and thistles fought tiny pines and choking grasses for sunlight. She picked a handful of greenery and flowers. Ivan watched silently as she laid the flowers on the stone. "Goodbye, fox," she said. "Sleep well."
She rubbed her eyes and reached for Ivan. They held each other's hands tightly as they walked back to the castle in the fading afternoon sun.
---------------------------------------------
Chapter Nine: And Last
---------------------------------------------
Bluebell and Ivan married the next spring, and when Ivan's father died they ruled Tourmaline wisely and well. They had two sons and two daughters who had no destinies, and when a glittering scroll arrived at their third daughter's naming, they burned it unopened, preferring not to know what it foretold. But destinies seemed rarer as the years went on. Handsome, (the horse that could once outrun the wind) became slow in its age, and the firebird was seldom seen, even in the distant south.
When their eldest son was eighteen, Bluebell and Ivan left him to manage Tourmaline while they visited family in Florissant. They spent a pleasant summer catching up on various relatives and old friends, but as the season drew to a close, Bluebell often stood on the balcony of their room, looking east to Lookfar Mountain.
Ivan asked her about this one evening.
"I wonder what became of the ivory tower," she said. "Did the destiny stop when the fox died, or is the tower still waiting for a new princess?"
"We can go look," said Ivan, crossing his arms over her chest and drawing her to him.
"I'm not sure I want to," said Bluebell. "It seems safer not to know."
"No, we should see for ourselves. Let's go tomorrow." Ivan hugged his wife tightly. "But now we should sleep."
Bluebell smiled, turning to kiss him. "This is true," she said, and they went inside.
The next morning they rode east with several of their nieces and nephews to search for the ivory tower, following the faint remnants of the trail Bluebell's family used to visit her, many years ago. But the trail ended in an empty clearing.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" asked Ivan.
"Yes," said Bluebell. "I spent five years in that tower. I remember." But the clearing held no signs of a tower, not even a foundation. The nieces and nephews searched for several hours, and in various nearby clearings, in case Bluebell's memory was not as good as she thought, but they found nothing. By mid-afternoon they gave up and went home.
"What do you suppose happened to the tower?" Bluebell asked Ivan that evening. "Did it vanish when the fox died? Was it ever truly there? Or did it simply move elsewhere, waiting for a new princess and prince to go through the story again? Did we change anything at all?"
"I don't know," said Ivan. "I suppose it doesn't matter much in the end. The story worked out well enough for us, and it's out of our hands anyway. Go to sleep, Bluebell."
She shivered and clung tightly when he hugged her. He fell asleep holding her, but Bluebell stared into the dark a long time, remembering the fox and thinking about their third daughter and her unread scroll.
---------------------------------------------
The End
---------------------------------------------
Back to chapters 5 and 6
---------------------------------------------
I would say something more, but I'm in a curious floaty headspace and coherence is not coming to me now.