[sunday_reveries] To Live In This World
To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your life depends on it; and when the time comes, to let it go.
-Mary Oliver
Mat decided, when he got his third ward, that his type was the "broken leader". Someone who was strong, and a leader, but who had been... fractured, somehow. Losing a lover, learning things you never needed to know about a parent, having to do something that just tears you up inside because you don't want to, but you have to, or think you do.
Ironically, all things that had happened to him, at some point.
And really, who'd've guessed that a ward could be someone you'd known for years, and only now was broken so deeply that they'd never be the same? It surprised him, when it happened, but he didn't tell her. She was in enough pain, physically and (mostly) emotionally, and she didn't need anything else to worry about. If she even understood the words...
So he didn't tell her, or anyone. He just looked after her as she slowly came back to herself. He got her a guitar on the suggestion of a friend, and he learned to play a bit so he could teach her. It helped bring her out, though she wasn't the same woman he remembered. She was quieter, less cock-sure, even as she picked up the pieces of herself and put them back together, and Mat wasn't entirely sure he knew how to handle her anymore. But he tried. He brought her soup and fresh fruit when she was feeling too unsettled to come out of her flat, and he went with her everywhere (or tagged along nearby) when she finally started going out. By the time she put herself back together, and got back to her business (which wasn't much, anymore, though she wouldn't usually admit to feeling a bit lost), she didn't even question why Mat was always there, always travelling with her, always staying in the same hotels and making all his plans around her and what she was doing and where she was going. They'd been close for years, especially since his second ward passed, and it wasn't as if he had anything better to be doing.
A year passed. Two. Miraculously, she managed to mostly stay out of trouble, and he managed to not panic when she didn't. A decade passed, and while they got into some interesting scrapes, it was nothing they couldn't handle, and there was no real need for him to tell her.
She didn't need protecting in the way that he knew she thought of as a Guardian's duty. She needed him for quieter things. Holding her at night when she couldn't sleep, bringing her things when she needed them, even if she hadn't asked, making sure she wasn't going to overdo it, making sure she wasn't going to hide in her room forever. She'd done that for him, once. Looked after him during a very difficult part of his life, in her own gruff and awkward way. And she'd looked after him in an equally gruff and significantly less awkward way when his second ward had died, all those years ago.
It was almost thirty years (time passes so quickly once you've passed 100 years old) before she decided that helping someone out would require a very dangerous operation, one that she normally wouldn't let Mat come on, and one he couldn't not come on.
"I have to come with you," he told her firmly. She raised an eyebrow, but didn't say no.
"All right," she said after a moment. It was too easy. She'd leave him behind, trick him into staying somehow.
"It's just--" he started, but she held her hand up to silence him, and he could see a wry smile playing about her lips.
All she said was, "I know," in that dry, bemused tone that was reserved just for him when he was being ridiculous. "You're not as subtle as you think you are, puppy." He wanted to ask how long she'd known, how she'd known, why she hadn't mentioned it. But it wasn't really important anymore, and he simply smiled back.
"I'll work on that," he said.
***
Three hundred years into their extremely odd relationship, she got herself a new ward. It was a strange sort of echo chamber for Mat, as he felt the echoes of the pain or pleasure that she felt from her ward. She told him point-blank that he was not to comment if he felt anything... interesting, and he kept his promise, even when he was practically knocked on his ass by the endorphins when she and her ward apparently... consummated their relationship.
And of course, the ward in question had to be a fairly well-known activist, and extremely hated in some circles. The three of them escaped death by little more than a hair more than once. And despite their best efforts, as so many revolutionaries are, her ward was killed young. The pain almost destroyed both of them, but she somehow kept her head long enough to bring a righteous vengeance down on the killers' heads that God's avenging armies would hardly be able to match. And then they cloistered themselves, and she wept, and he played her guitar so poorly (how long had it been since he'd learned the bare basics in order to begin teaching her so long ago?) that she finally snapped at him that he was going to burst her eardrums and started playing herself.
As it had the first time, it helped her gather the shattered pieces of herself and put them back in some semblance of order and self. It didn't change her the way the first time did - Mat thought that it made sense, really - but there were more curves to her personality, as she put herself back together, more give to her will.
"You used to be a mountain," he told her absently one night a couple years later, absently running his fingers through her dark hair.
"What am I now?" she murmured sleepily, curled against his chest.
"I'm not sure," he replied, and gave a bit of thought to this. "A canyon, I think. You can be eroded and eroded, but all it does is make you deeper."
She chuckled softly at that. "So an anti-mountain?"
"An inverted mountain, maybe," he said with a faint smile. "Go to sleep."
"Mmm," she responded. "Don't have to."
"Yes you do."
"Bully."
"Yes, I'm so cruel."
"Dictator."
"Take it up with the natural processes of your body."
"I just might."
***
The day before Mat turns 900, they spend the day wandering around the parks and museums in Chicago, talking about how different it is from the city they'd known as teenagers. They don't talk about 900, and the milestone it is (especially for angels like them), and the changes that are about to happen. They shout at some teenagers who nearly bowl them over, running down the sidewalk whooping and shouting and revelling in the unusually warm February day.
As they watch the lake with the sun to their backs, they finally stop avoiding the inevitable.
"I'm not cut out to be a leader," Mat says.
"You don't have to be," she replies. "Things have changed since we were kids."
"I know," he says, "but there still aren't many as old as us."
"Just hang in there for a few more years," she tells him, leaning against him and resting her head on his shoulder. "Then I'll be one, too, and you can just be my PA or something."
"And bring you coffee and keep your appointments and screen your calls?" he asks, smiling.
"Exactly," she says with a smirk. "I always needed a Pepper, anyway."
"You're a dork," he tells her.
"I learned from the best," she says with a laugh, as the sun dips below the horizon.
As the darkness grows around them, he wraps his arms around her, his wings around them both. "I don't know what I'll do when I don't have to look after you anymore," he whispers.
"You'll do the same thing you've done for centuries," she whispers back. "You don't need any stupid psychic bond to force you to do it."
He smiles a bit, and the knot of uncertainty in his chest starts to loosen and untangle. She's right, and he knows it, and as always, her brusque straight-forward declaration eases his mind.
They sit there, in the cold, until they hear the city bells chime midnight.
-Mary Oliver
Mat decided, when he got his third ward, that his type was the "broken leader". Someone who was strong, and a leader, but who had been... fractured, somehow. Losing a lover, learning things you never needed to know about a parent, having to do something that just tears you up inside because you don't want to, but you have to, or think you do.
Ironically, all things that had happened to him, at some point.
And really, who'd've guessed that a ward could be someone you'd known for years, and only now was broken so deeply that they'd never be the same? It surprised him, when it happened, but he didn't tell her. She was in enough pain, physically and (mostly) emotionally, and she didn't need anything else to worry about. If she even understood the words...
So he didn't tell her, or anyone. He just looked after her as she slowly came back to herself. He got her a guitar on the suggestion of a friend, and he learned to play a bit so he could teach her. It helped bring her out, though she wasn't the same woman he remembered. She was quieter, less cock-sure, even as she picked up the pieces of herself and put them back together, and Mat wasn't entirely sure he knew how to handle her anymore. But he tried. He brought her soup and fresh fruit when she was feeling too unsettled to come out of her flat, and he went with her everywhere (or tagged along nearby) when she finally started going out. By the time she put herself back together, and got back to her business (which wasn't much, anymore, though she wouldn't usually admit to feeling a bit lost), she didn't even question why Mat was always there, always travelling with her, always staying in the same hotels and making all his plans around her and what she was doing and where she was going. They'd been close for years, especially since his second ward passed, and it wasn't as if he had anything better to be doing.
A year passed. Two. Miraculously, she managed to mostly stay out of trouble, and he managed to not panic when she didn't. A decade passed, and while they got into some interesting scrapes, it was nothing they couldn't handle, and there was no real need for him to tell her.
She didn't need protecting in the way that he knew she thought of as a Guardian's duty. She needed him for quieter things. Holding her at night when she couldn't sleep, bringing her things when she needed them, even if she hadn't asked, making sure she wasn't going to overdo it, making sure she wasn't going to hide in her room forever. She'd done that for him, once. Looked after him during a very difficult part of his life, in her own gruff and awkward way. And she'd looked after him in an equally gruff and significantly less awkward way when his second ward had died, all those years ago.
It was almost thirty years (time passes so quickly once you've passed 100 years old) before she decided that helping someone out would require a very dangerous operation, one that she normally wouldn't let Mat come on, and one he couldn't not come on.
"I have to come with you," he told her firmly. She raised an eyebrow, but didn't say no.
"All right," she said after a moment. It was too easy. She'd leave him behind, trick him into staying somehow.
"It's just--" he started, but she held her hand up to silence him, and he could see a wry smile playing about her lips.
All she said was, "I know," in that dry, bemused tone that was reserved just for him when he was being ridiculous. "You're not as subtle as you think you are, puppy." He wanted to ask how long she'd known, how she'd known, why she hadn't mentioned it. But it wasn't really important anymore, and he simply smiled back.
"I'll work on that," he said.
***
Three hundred years into their extremely odd relationship, she got herself a new ward. It was a strange sort of echo chamber for Mat, as he felt the echoes of the pain or pleasure that she felt from her ward. She told him point-blank that he was not to comment if he felt anything... interesting, and he kept his promise, even when he was practically knocked on his ass by the endorphins when she and her ward apparently... consummated their relationship.
And of course, the ward in question had to be a fairly well-known activist, and extremely hated in some circles. The three of them escaped death by little more than a hair more than once. And despite their best efforts, as so many revolutionaries are, her ward was killed young. The pain almost destroyed both of them, but she somehow kept her head long enough to bring a righteous vengeance down on the killers' heads that God's avenging armies would hardly be able to match. And then they cloistered themselves, and she wept, and he played her guitar so poorly (how long had it been since he'd learned the bare basics in order to begin teaching her so long ago?) that she finally snapped at him that he was going to burst her eardrums and started playing herself.
As it had the first time, it helped her gather the shattered pieces of herself and put them back in some semblance of order and self. It didn't change her the way the first time did - Mat thought that it made sense, really - but there were more curves to her personality, as she put herself back together, more give to her will.
"You used to be a mountain," he told her absently one night a couple years later, absently running his fingers through her dark hair.
"What am I now?" she murmured sleepily, curled against his chest.
"I'm not sure," he replied, and gave a bit of thought to this. "A canyon, I think. You can be eroded and eroded, but all it does is make you deeper."
She chuckled softly at that. "So an anti-mountain?"
"An inverted mountain, maybe," he said with a faint smile. "Go to sleep."
"Mmm," she responded. "Don't have to."
"Yes you do."
"Bully."
"Yes, I'm so cruel."
"Dictator."
"Take it up with the natural processes of your body."
"I just might."
***
The day before Mat turns 900, they spend the day wandering around the parks and museums in Chicago, talking about how different it is from the city they'd known as teenagers. They don't talk about 900, and the milestone it is (especially for angels like them), and the changes that are about to happen. They shout at some teenagers who nearly bowl them over, running down the sidewalk whooping and shouting and revelling in the unusually warm February day.
As they watch the lake with the sun to their backs, they finally stop avoiding the inevitable.
"I'm not cut out to be a leader," Mat says.
"You don't have to be," she replies. "Things have changed since we were kids."
"I know," he says, "but there still aren't many as old as us."
"Just hang in there for a few more years," she tells him, leaning against him and resting her head on his shoulder. "Then I'll be one, too, and you can just be my PA or something."
"And bring you coffee and keep your appointments and screen your calls?" he asks, smiling.
"Exactly," she says with a smirk. "I always needed a Pepper, anyway."
"You're a dork," he tells her.
"I learned from the best," she says with a laugh, as the sun dips below the horizon.
As the darkness grows around them, he wraps his arms around her, his wings around them both. "I don't know what I'll do when I don't have to look after you anymore," he whispers.
"You'll do the same thing you've done for centuries," she whispers back. "You don't need any stupid psychic bond to force you to do it."
He smiles a bit, and the knot of uncertainty in his chest starts to loosen and untangle. She's right, and he knows it, and as always, her brusque straight-forward declaration eases his mind.
They sit there, in the cold, until they hear the city bells chime midnight.