{"sf1_id":1720590,"sf2_id":"Jewgq9eO","title":"Ragnarok - XXI","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":1580,"posted_at":"2021-05-21T18:27:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1720590-ragnarok-xxi","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/Jewgq9eO","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/37/df/37df6ab1-c4f0-4cb8-a006-c3c234edf810","description":"#22 of Ragnarok\n\nShane meets the Old Man in person, at last, hidden from the Sulfur Carrier in the mortal world. And from there he goes to finally say farewell.\nI'm reasonably proud of this canto, even if it is straight. Perhaps I spent and expunged the last remnants of my heterosexuality in writing it, and ever since, I have been free.","content":"The man turned round and smiled. As when the blobs\n\nOf seeming random ink click suddenly\n\nInto an image unmistakable\n\nOf a familiar human face without\n\nThe slightest alteration in themselves,\n\nBut only in the one who stares, and stares,\n\nAnd stares, and grimaces, and finally sees,\n\nAnd never afterward can unsee, Shane,\n\nWith shock so like a heart attack that if\n\nHis heart still beat it would have stopped again,\n\nRecognized the Old Man who had taught Varr,\n\nWho had baptized Klau in berzerkerhood,\n\nWho had haunted his own dreams. Shane stepped back\n\nAnd stumbled on a low-lying gravestone.\n\nThe Old Man said, \"Rise, Champion. Your task\n\nIs not complete, and your road lies ahead.\"\n\nHe held out one gnarled hand, and Shane reached up,\n\nTook it, amazed to find it tangible.\n\nThe Old Man's grip was strong. Shane was hauled to\n\nHis feet like an anchor out of the waves.\n\n\"One thing there is I do not understand.\"\n\nShane gulped, \"Why have I come back? Why must I\n\nHaunt these streets once familiar? Is it as\n\nThe Witchfolk King insinuated, that\n\nSomeone, called Barbara I now recall,\n\nTo whom I owe a farewell, not yet paid?\"\n\n\"You are here,\" said the Old Man, \"by your own\n\nFree doing. No man brought you to the arch.\n\nNo man forced you to walk through it, and none\n\nCompelled you to break through the seal of Death\n\nPlaced on it. For that seal was Death indeed.\n\nWritten in it was coffin, grave, and stone,\n\nAnd all the insurmountables between\n\nDeath and Life. When the soul slips from the breast\n\nWhat a great void it crosses! Like a pit\n\nWithout a bottom, infinitely deep.\n\nWhen once you cross it, what barrier can\n\nHold more impassably against you? I\n\nKnow none.\" \"But that,\" said Shane, \"Only makes more\n\nImpossible that I should be here. How,\n\nIf to the dead such seals are very Death,\n\nIf to the dead such death is a dead end,\n\nComes it that I did cross? Mean you to say\n\nThat after all this I am not dead, as\n\nI might have speculated, lord, how long\n\nAgo, when first I woke in silent woods?\"\n\nThe Old Man smiled again. \"I would not know.\n\nYou are to me a path I have not trod,\n\nAnd there is much in you none could foresee.\n\nBut what you posit has the ring of truth.\n\nMy other warriors always took their leave\n\nOf wives, of sweethearts, parents or children,\n\nBefore they went to battle. If it is\n\nVouchsafed to you to take your leave again,\n\nThen take it, and I deem you will be whole,\n\nAnd brave, in death as once you were in life.\n\nWhen you have said goodbye, and made your peace,\n\nThen we two will return, to make the stand\n\nThat all your soul will long for.\" The Old Man\n\nNodded toward the lower slopes, where near\n\nThe somnambulant river monuments\n\nWere newer. As Shane followed with his eyes\n\nHe felt something grow taut beneath his lungs\n\nAnd through his whole body there rushed the now\n\nFamiliar weightless feeling. As he took\n\nThe first slow, slowly quickening\n\nSteps toward some place his legs and gut both knew\n\nBut his mind had not yet recognized, the\n\nOld Man called after him, \"I will await\n\nYou on yon hilltop, by the spreading ash.\"\n\nThen Shane was left alone with his growing\n\nSense both of familiarity and loss,\n\nAs when a man now grown passes the street\n\nAnd house in which he was a boy, and sees\n\nThe once-known walls a different color,\n\nThe flowers in the yard all changed, the soul\n\nThat once inhabited and formed the place\n\nNow gone, and with another soul instead\n\nLending its texture to the scene: what once\n\nWas home is just another house, though much\n\nIt may resemble the home he once knew.\n\nThe grey pre-morning dark drew barely back.\n\nThe skin upon his neck twitched and shuddered.\n\nThe graves around him were just visible.\n\nAnd then he saw her from behind. Her head-\n\nOh, her hair as smooth as water's face-\n\nWas bowed as with exhaustion or with prayer-\n\nOh, her soft hands as strong as cold iron-\n\nAnd as he stood behind her, like a man\n\nWho blinks himself awake to find the sun\n\nIs scratching at the blinds to be let in\n\nA moment waits in puzzlement to sort\n\nThe half-remembered fragments of his dreams\n\nUntil he knows again his name and date\n\nAnd all the deja-vus he had in sleep\n\nFall forgotten as if they never were,\n\nSo did the boxer's memories return\n\nComplete now, without violence, and so\n\nQuietly that he did not realize\n\nThey were returning until they were back.\n\nBarbara stood before him. Now he knew\n\nExactly who she was and what that meant.\n\nBarbara was with him, and now he felt\n\nThe old warmth, still alive enough to make\n\nFor doubts if he were dead, save that he now\n\nHad all his memories of dying, too.\n\nBarbara stood before him. The false dawn\n\nBehind her like a halo lit her form\n\nWithout casting a shadow, so they both\n\nMight have seemed ghosts to one who could both see.\n\nShe did not turn as she began to speak-\n\nAnd oh, her voice. Not earth-shattering, not\n\nTen thousand thunders, not bright numinous,\n\nBut heavy laden with old mornings, days\n\nIn winter parks with nothing much to do,\n\nWith home, with peace, with quiet well-earned rest-\n\n\"They handed down the verdict yesterday.\n\nI was afraid it would not come before\n\nI had to go. But things have always come\n\nBut barely in the nick of time, for us.\n\nSave once. They ruled it was no accident,\n\nWhich anyone with eyes could plainly see,\n\nAnd have barred him from competition for\n\nFive seasons. And if I had been the judge\n\nI would have sentenced him to life, and laid\n\nDown torments daily on his guilty head,\n\nAnd when he was entirely broken down\n\nI would have had him hung, his body flung\n\nUpon a garbage heap and left to rot\n\nWhere even rats would shudder to touch it.\n\nBut they ruled it\u0026nbsp;no accident, when one\n\nStrikes a man from behind in his moment\n\nOf victory after a match is called,\n\nTo break his neck and spine, to break his brain,\n\nTo steal from me in spite all that I had,\n\nAnd that is true enough. So I will take\n\nWhat justice I can get before I leave\n\nAs leave I must, tomorrow.\u0026nbsp;No, today:\n\nThat is the sun just rising. I don't know\n\nWhere I will go, yet, but I cannot stay\n\nWhere you were and are not. I see no point\n\nTo anything that I watch people do:\n\nWhy do girls smile, when you lie in your grave?\n\nWho do men toil, when toil availeth not?\n\nWhy does the sun still rise? What good can it\n\nDo for the sun to shine upon the world?\n\nThey called me Barbara after the saint\n\nWho prays for those who die a sudden death.\n\nIf I had known that was an omen, that\n\nMy love for you would doom you suddenly,\n\nWould I have better done to only sigh\n\nFrom far away, and never touched your hand,\n\nNor kissed your mouth, nor followed you, nor laid\n\nBeside you listening to your sleeping breath?\n\nI do not know. I only know one thing:\n\nThere is no purpose left in life, yet I\n\nMust go on living, somehow. So I came\n\nTo say goodbye. We did not get a chance\n\nTo say goodbye when you left me, did we?\"\n\nShane slowly shook his invisible head-\n\n\"I was angry with you for that, I think,\n\nBut I have no more anger in me now.\n\nThat's how I know it's time to say goodbye.\"\n\nShane reached for her with hands that could not touch-\n\n\"So, if you have heard any of the things\n\nThat I came lingering to say, hear this:\n\nI loved you more than I know how to tell.\n\nI loved you, Shane. I loved you. Now goodbye.\"\n\nWith that, Barbara turned. Her face was set.\n\nNo shadow of a tear would dare to form\n\nUpon that cheek. And she did not look back.\n\nNow somewhere it was winter. But winter,\n\nEven the wide immovable winter\n\nSnowless and silent on the pre-dawn tombs,\n\nIs but a passing thing. It too shall pass.\n\nShane did not try to follow. He looked at\n\nThe stone where Barbara had stood of late.\n\nThough still within his mind whirled frantically\n\nSuch cries as 'I cannot abandon her,'\n\nAnd 'How can she abandon me, and now?'\n\nAnd 'Though I am the proof that death may be\n\nMerely the gateway to some other world,\n\nHow many worlds are there? I have glimpsed but\n\nA fraction of a fraction! How could I\n\nSearch through them all enough to find her when\n\nShe wakes in the high heaven she deserves?'\n\nAll these words whirled upon the other side\n\nOf the goodbye that she had said and his\n\nMouth had performed in silent unison.\n\nNow there were no more hooks left in his heart.\n\nHe took a moment to engrave upon\n\nHis memory the words the headstone bore:\n\n'SHANE FALCONI,' some irrelevant dates,\n\nAnd then 'CHAMPION.' No more said the grave.\n\nNo more could he think of for it to say.\n\nShane turned and walked away. His path lead not\n\nIn the direction Barbara had gone.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1720152-ragnarok-xx.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1720943-ragnarok-xxii.json"}}