backstory!
Alden is sixteen when the man comes. He’s the sort of guy who looks as though he should be smoking a cigarette and maybe wearing a seedy trenchcoat, though he isn’t.
His first word is “why?” At least, that’s how his mother tells it. His mother tells him many stories, and afterwards, if he wants to think about it-which he doesn’t, usually-he suspects maybe she tells him so many things because there is nothing else she can do.
“I can show you the world in a handful of dust,” the stranger tells Alden, and Alden wills the light not to kindle in his eyes. He is tired of saying tell me. He is tired of why. He tries not to think of all those times he wondered. He doesn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of seeing it.
His father is a manipulative man. He knows it before he knows the word for it. He knows it because his mother’s delight and despair are tired up in his father’s slightest word or gesture. He hates his father for that. He hates his father for tugging his mother’s life about so. He hates his father because there is something fascinating in that manipulation, and so he begs silently, tell me.
The stranger is not speaking figuratively, Alden finds. The man is far too flash to really pick up dust, but he unfolds worlds Alden has never dreamed of. They are not little worlds as those he learned of in school; these are not galaxies of atoms. This is not science. It’s something Alden’s not supposed to admit exists. But it does.
It kills his mother, though no one ever says so. No one speaks of things like that, his mother explains, before she dies. She explains many things to him, though at the time he always knows they aren’t quite the sort of things he really wants to know. He doesn’t want to feel trees growing and see colour in darkness and kindle flames from nothing and draw from the piano notes upon his dancing fingers that make his hair stand on end. He doesn’t want to hear about centering himself, because if he looks inwards like that he finds something white-hot consuming at his core, and it scares him. they all say the cancer killed his mother, but he knows that is not so. It kills her, the glorious consuming light.
Alden asks the man where his power comes from, but Val, with his rakish hat and the way he calls Alden lad, will not answer that. He says it’s different for everyone. Alden tells him, you’re a fucking liar, and delights in the responding flare in Val’s eyes, and that is how Alden knows. He learned it from his father, really, this way of saying precisely the thing that hits a nerve. And perhaps Alden hates himself for that, and then again perhaps therein lies the power.
Hail Mary, full of grace, he says, and the words stick in his throat. He is a good boy. Blessed art thou among women, he tries, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, and then he stops before he can say the wrong thing. Mary is dead; his mother is dead. Perhaps then too God is dead. This is a horrifying thought, and so he stumbles on, Holy Mary, Mother of God, and then he has to stop himself from laughing. She cannot pray for the sinners. She is dead. And he is Mary Alden’s son. Does that make him God? Does that make him dead? The treacherous old why is pushing at his throat. He stops being John, future Lord Kent, that day. Stops being John entirely, but he cannot stop what they have done to him, his mother Mary Alden and his father Lord Kent. And so he takes them both and makes them his, like a reminder. Or a punishment.
Val still calls Alden lad, no matter how furiously Alden corrects him. Alden secretly likes it; likes the way it sounds, like that perhaps it makes him a child again. And he hates it too, because Alden can do nothing in half measures. It is all or nothing. Val does not really see. Val is testing him, his limits and his powers, and Alden can tell Val likes what he sees. So Alden is patient, and finally Val makes up his mind, and he tells Alden of these worlds, the ones that are like science but not, and Alden feels a flare of something funny that he has not experienced in quite some time. It feels like hope.
What the hell happened? his father asks, and Lord Alden doesn’t know. Doesn’t know what to say to this man who still knows him as nothing but John. Words and words, Alden thinks miserably, and sits atop a hill overlooking the city as clouds go roiling overhead. He wonders if perhaps he should be sorry he keeps a knife in his pocket now, for the comforting weight of it and to slash at the turf instead of screaming. Alden is glad his father’s life and words do not affect him as they did his mother. Alden promises himself he will never be bound to anyone so.
They are leaving now. Lord Kent doesn’t really know what’s happening, but Val takes care of everything with his rakish grin. He does not use any magic. Alden will not allow him that. But then everything is taken care of, and so they will leave. Alden does not regret the leaving; there is no one to miss, and there will be new people soon; he cannot and will not charm them as Val does, but he has not fallen for his teacher’s grin, and they have a strange, not-quite-easy companionship all the same. That’s all Alden ever asks of anyone. Val takes out his odd little handheld computer, and Alden looks around at his green country and silently says goodbye. Val initiates transportation.
Everything telescopes inwards then, and all time is the same.
His first word is “why?” At least, that’s how his mother tells it. His mother tells him many stories, and afterwards, if he wants to think about it-which he doesn’t, usually-he suspects maybe she tells him so many things because there is nothing else she can do.
“I can show you the world in a handful of dust,” the stranger tells Alden, and Alden wills the light not to kindle in his eyes. He is tired of saying tell me. He is tired of why. He tries not to think of all those times he wondered. He doesn’t want to give the man the satisfaction of seeing it.
His father is a manipulative man. He knows it before he knows the word for it. He knows it because his mother’s delight and despair are tired up in his father’s slightest word or gesture. He hates his father for that. He hates his father for tugging his mother’s life about so. He hates his father because there is something fascinating in that manipulation, and so he begs silently, tell me.
The stranger is not speaking figuratively, Alden finds. The man is far too flash to really pick up dust, but he unfolds worlds Alden has never dreamed of. They are not little worlds as those he learned of in school; these are not galaxies of atoms. This is not science. It’s something Alden’s not supposed to admit exists. But it does.
It kills his mother, though no one ever says so. No one speaks of things like that, his mother explains, before she dies. She explains many things to him, though at the time he always knows they aren’t quite the sort of things he really wants to know. He doesn’t want to feel trees growing and see colour in darkness and kindle flames from nothing and draw from the piano notes upon his dancing fingers that make his hair stand on end. He doesn’t want to hear about centering himself, because if he looks inwards like that he finds something white-hot consuming at his core, and it scares him. they all say the cancer killed his mother, but he knows that is not so. It kills her, the glorious consuming light.
Alden asks the man where his power comes from, but Val, with his rakish hat and the way he calls Alden lad, will not answer that. He says it’s different for everyone. Alden tells him, you’re a fucking liar, and delights in the responding flare in Val’s eyes, and that is how Alden knows. He learned it from his father, really, this way of saying precisely the thing that hits a nerve. And perhaps Alden hates himself for that, and then again perhaps therein lies the power.
Hail Mary, full of grace, he says, and the words stick in his throat. He is a good boy. Blessed art thou among women, he tries, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, and then he stops before he can say the wrong thing. Mary is dead; his mother is dead. Perhaps then too God is dead. This is a horrifying thought, and so he stumbles on, Holy Mary, Mother of God, and then he has to stop himself from laughing. She cannot pray for the sinners. She is dead. And he is Mary Alden’s son. Does that make him God? Does that make him dead? The treacherous old why is pushing at his throat. He stops being John, future Lord Kent, that day. Stops being John entirely, but he cannot stop what they have done to him, his mother Mary Alden and his father Lord Kent. And so he takes them both and makes them his, like a reminder. Or a punishment.
Val still calls Alden lad, no matter how furiously Alden corrects him. Alden secretly likes it; likes the way it sounds, like that perhaps it makes him a child again. And he hates it too, because Alden can do nothing in half measures. It is all or nothing. Val does not really see. Val is testing him, his limits and his powers, and Alden can tell Val likes what he sees. So Alden is patient, and finally Val makes up his mind, and he tells Alden of these worlds, the ones that are like science but not, and Alden feels a flare of something funny that he has not experienced in quite some time. It feels like hope.
What the hell happened? his father asks, and Lord Alden doesn’t know. Doesn’t know what to say to this man who still knows him as nothing but John. Words and words, Alden thinks miserably, and sits atop a hill overlooking the city as clouds go roiling overhead. He wonders if perhaps he should be sorry he keeps a knife in his pocket now, for the comforting weight of it and to slash at the turf instead of screaming. Alden is glad his father’s life and words do not affect him as they did his mother. Alden promises himself he will never be bound to anyone so.
They are leaving now. Lord Kent doesn’t really know what’s happening, but Val takes care of everything with his rakish grin. He does not use any magic. Alden will not allow him that. But then everything is taken care of, and so they will leave. Alden does not regret the leaving; there is no one to miss, and there will be new people soon; he cannot and will not charm them as Val does, but he has not fallen for his teacher’s grin, and they have a strange, not-quite-easy companionship all the same. That’s all Alden ever asks of anyone. Val takes out his odd little handheld computer, and Alden looks around at his green country and silently says goodbye. Val initiates transportation.
Everything telescopes inwards then, and all time is the same.