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To Skill is to develop an awareness of the many threads that convalesce to weave a man’s inner world, for to know one’s fellow is to know oneself, for in the possession of fears and secrets are wars waged and blood spilled, and thus perhaps in a world where every man understood the plight of those who share his place and time, all could come to truly coexist. Some compare a Skill-bond to holding a great looking glass that paints but a reflection of a man’s soul upon those he reaches, but perhaps it is more apt to deem it a wild river, the tributaries of which splinter off in all directions and cross into the currents that bind souls. These soul connections not only protect a king’s will and in turn the fate of his kingdom, but offer the solitary man the temptation of a joining like no other, save perhaps, for those beast-bonds forged by the Wit. It is undeniable then, that there is an ardency in that joining, for what is love but to know the sound of another’s heart as surely as the beating of one’s own?

- BADGERLOCK’S TRANSLATION OF “ON SKILLING”

That night I dreamed of Molly. 

The sun burned in the sky, warming sand and shale and bare skin. Sea-washed driftwood crackled and sputtered; sending faint, winking embers coiling up into the day’s bright air. Somewhere beyond our vignette, the scent of sweet meats and cinnamon and honey rose enticingly, filling my mind until her touch enveloped all that remained. 

Molly’s knuckles slid up the length of my forearm and our palms met, her deft fingers curling into the gaps between mine with practiced ease. 

The look she wore for me betrayed a notion beyond hunger. Her eyes were a cartographer’s; putting the shape of a hill to vellum, seeking to commit to memory topographies she had sought to learn time and time again. Molly’s knee was in between my legs, her right palm flat on the ground beside my head. The blue ocean glittered like paint at her back. Her pupils were blown wide, her wind-tangled hair curtaining her face. Sunlight twined through and turned strands the color of molasses into threads of light where her braid had come delicately undone.

Molly kept one hand entwined with mine as she tucked my hair behind my ear, cupping my face with a gentleness I’ve scarcely known. She ran her hands over my wispy beard, a curl of amusement bending her lip. It was a boy's patchy beard, though under her touch I felt I had become a man.

I lay on my back against the thin blanket with her on top of me. Tiny rocks jabbed into the cloth of my shirt and chafed my spine. I could not bring myself to acknowledge the discomfort, for her roaming hands explored my body with boldness and delight in equal measure. I was dimly aware of the screech of gulls bickering on the wind and the sussuring of waves. Beyond the strong curve of Molly’s shoulder, a whetted cliff of jutting black stone threatened to chomp down on the bay, and my mind clung to odd sensations: the sand’s dampness and the icy bite of feldspars and the singing shoreline where the ocean beckoned.

Soon even the close white coast became a distraction, for her face eclipsed my vision. 

She opened my shirt without haste, her hands working tantalisingly slow, as if she were rolling a wick into fine wax for one of her candles. The apples of her cheeks shined as she sunk the blunt ends of her nails into my skin. I opened my eyes, counting the freckles spotting her tanned nose. As she brought her mouth to mine in admiration, I could hardly tell the warmth of her touch apart from the sun’s infectious light. We kissed deeply, indulgently, as though all of time was ours to command. I felt the tip of her tongue tease my jaw as she followed the line of my throat. I shivered against her touch, my neck damp as sea washed salt. Her hardened nipples grazed my lowest rib through the soft fabric of her linen blouse, and my pulse began to drum. Her skirts were red as they’d ever been, a shade that complimented the color of her skin and touched her eyes.

I could still taste the ripe acidity of the dandelion wine we’d shared on my lips as I fumbled with the drawstring of my trousers with shaking fingers. She pushed me down before I'd peeled them away my ankles. Her hands moved past my waist and circumscribed my inner thigh. Then she pressed flush against me, and I was more humbled than ashamed at the reflexive shudder that passed through me. Privately, I was aware I was as susceptible to touch as a newborn calf. The shame it might’ve brought me was replaced with gratitude when Molly held my face.

We locked eyes, and a distant memory resurfaced. My first night at Buckkeep, Nosy's soft hide tucked warm against my side as we curled up against the coarse, musty straw of the barns. Scary and unfamiliar as my surroundings were, I had felt protected as I slept among the pups. I felt a similar surge of safety now. Her fingers found the length of me, and my mouth fell open in a gasp. I watched her smile knowingly before giving in to pleasure.

I began to tremble, but she wound her body to mine so strongly I was afraid we would fall into one another. 

The far scent of the surf was dwarfed by the smell of the soap on her hair and the slight scent of lingering waxberry on her skin. That was my Molly, beeswax and bayberry and squared shoulders and fiery smiles. The sudden hot pull I felt beneath my navel was unmistakable, and I could not help the rising hair over my chest and arms. 

I could not keep my eyes off of her as she undid the strings at the front of her blouse and exposed her breasts. She gently pinched her rosy nipples between the tip of her thumb and forefinger, and I knew the same shade had reached my face. She brought her mouth to mine again and kissed me like someone starved might suck the marrow from bone, before taking my fumbling hands and bringing them to the beautiful cinch of her waist.

I held her close, encircling her in my arms to steady her as she lined her hips over mine and spread them wide. 

I stared openly. 

The certainty of her desire was plain in the way the blood bloomed in her cheeks, her billowing skirts bunched up over her knees so that they pooled like a fount around us. Molly drew me inside her, and I surrendered to the friction that threatened to rob me of all the secrets I kept from her, and all the secrets I kept from myself. 

I closed my eyes, a muscle sliding in my jaw as I strained a moment before relinquishing all control. Heat swarmed me in the silence that followed the bloodrush of Molly’s mouth around me. I feared I was not the swaggering liar my master had laboured to make of me, for I was too weak to fight the low sounds of approval her exploring fingers coaxed from me, and too proud to pretend otherwise. For Molly could have chosen any of the men that preened after her; closer to her in age and larger than me in stature, but it was I who she had chosen.  

We were young and blessed with the beginnings of love and all was right in the world. The docile clouds blew slowly in the early summer evening, drifting like tufts of cotton against a hazy blue sky laden with precipitation. I estimated the rain would not make landfall until the stars were well placed in the night. We had time. All the time in the world.

The crescent moon hung over us, mirroring the shape of her sun-warmed breasts, and I became overcome by how well they fit in my hands. Blissfully apart from myself, I relished my emancipation from the tiresome intrigues of Buckkeep and its residents, my body pliant as mud sliding in the rain. 

Here, there was no bastard and no assassin. No threat on the horizon that sought to spoil the days of boyhood to come. 

Here, the world boiled down to two willing bodies. How dearly I had missed her, the resolute strength of her kisses, the chime of her laughter, that hint of a familiar grin as she chased my lips with her own. 

The sanctuary of her arms was an escape like no hidden corner I had ever known. It was perhaps, the true stealth I wished to possess. 

I moaned as her knees tightened around my waist and knew with certainty that I was nearing the edge. The heat we traded was sweet in the fading day’s stillness. 

Her soft lips found mine and we kissed once more, my heart still pounding in the aftermath, but the restless churn of my thoughts was replaced with delightful silence. She brought her fingers to my mouth and made me taste my arousal, her eyes never leaving my face. 

“FitzChivalry,” she spoke, and her voice was a prayer in the rising wind.

I gripped her hand in mine, as if I could erase all that I was through her touch alone.

“Newboy,” I corrected her. She smiled at me, a daring old smile I’ve known since we were spirited urchins venturing the windy streets of my boyhood. Our lips met again. Firmly, she brought my hand to the inviting warmth between her legs. 

“Newboy.” She agreed, the name dissolving into a pleasant gasp.

I awoke with a start and flung away my blankets like a man burned. For what felt like minutes I sat, forcing air back into my lungs. The desire that had plunged me abandoned me now with a quickness. 

In the shapeless dark of the yurt, the blinking red eye of the fading brazier just barely revealed the hunkered forms of my company. To my relief, they still slept soundly. Sweat jammed the back of my shirt to my spine, and I raised a hand to peel it free of my skin. Outside, the wind rattled the goatskin facades of the tent like an approaching stampede. Spring had begun to breach the winter’s defenses, but the nights still proved long and chilly. The shadows of our interiors were drawn long, ghosting across the earth like brambles. I heard the faint trill of the night’s rallying insects beyond our camp, but the world was oddly muted to me, my mind a swirling tide pool in the minutes it took me to get my bearings.

I groaned and ran my hands over my face. I was still blinking the black spots from my eyes when I shifted in my pallet. Dismay engulfed me, I had not been inconspicuous.

The Fool was goggling at me. 

He lay listlessly on his side, concern furrowing his pale brow, his jaw tucked above his drawn-up knees. It was startling how small he could make himself, when he desired so. I doubted my own limbs could accomplish such a tangle.

I stubbornly avoided his gaze. I could not seem to wipe the dream from my eyes, its heat had fled me too swiftly. I was cold and bereft, like I'd come down from a terrible fever. My hair had knotted over my damp brow, irritating my vision. 

Across from us, Nighteyes slanted me a look without lifting his head from his paws. His keen eyes pierced me in the dark.

You are ruttish, Brother . He informed me, not without amusement. I bit the inside of my cheek and heaved a sigh, resolving to salvage what I could of my dignity. 

Very funny. Leave me be, Wolf .

Nighteyes yawned boredly, baring a flash of teeth and pink tongue. It is not I who seeks to disturb you. 

I turned my head, fixing the Fool with a wary glance. He looked sleepless and pallid, and his shoulders still shook from the cold, though he was making a valiant effort to conceal it. He seemed to sport a ceaseless shiver, these days. The elfbark he’d been dousing had only seemed to further exhaust him.

“Only a bad dream,” I finally said.

“Was it Regal?”

“No,” I paused. “I’m sorry, I did not mean to wake you.”

“One who does not doze can hardly be roused, Fitz,” his lower lip curled and the brimming mischief that danced in his eyes filled me with dread. “You have nothing to apologize for. Dare I say you provided this sleepless Fool with a display most entertaining. That dream of yours seemed, rather, impassioned.”

I knew that familiar note of derision in his voice. I suppose I had the good sense to feel ashamed. Had I been blathering in my sleep? How long had it been since I’d dreamed of Molly? Lately, I’d willed to put her squarely out of my mind. When I dreamed of Molly at all, I often found myself in the present, haunting them in their paltry little abode-Burrich and Molly and their child.

My child.

“Fitz?”

“Go to sleep, Fool. I’ll relieve Kettle of her watch.” 

Even as I spoke, a terrible chill welled up inside me.

The Fool ignored me. “Oh, Molly,” he mocked, in an exuberant whisper. “Oh, my dear, sweet Molly!” He inhaled through his teeth like he was out of breath, grinning wide. 

I wanted to throttle him.

“Be quiet,” I hissed.

I fought the alarm I felt and wondered just how much of myself I’d revealed. I darted an urgent gaze around the room, relieved to find my Queen and Starling unstirred. I sighed, suddenly buckling under the weight of my shortcomings. I fought the same shade of humiliation I’d known when Verity had admitted he’d bore witness to my dreams of Molly; that he’d been with me when we slept together. It was more than ignominy that struck me at the thought. It had been an invasion, a breach of a desire I had conceived in private. My King had warned me I’ve always been inept at guarding my thoughts. I’d been diligent about fortifying my Skill-walls before bedding down, or so I’d foolishly thought, and yet no matter how I applied myself, my efforts were like trying to preserve a swallow’s nest in a strong gale. 

“Tsk, tsk. And in the same room as our faithful Queen…For shame, Fitzy-Fitz! For shame.” The Fool wiggled his eyebrows at me, feigning disappointment. 

I scowled and a shiver coursed through me. The dwindling fire’s warmth seemed suddenly sparse. Sweat had begun to numb me. 

“You are cold,” the Fool observed, dropping his theatrics, much to my relief. 

“So?”

“So it does not do for the both of us to be cold.” The Fool gestured idly to where our bedding was pushed together. He was quiet for a moment, before tartly admitting, “I cannot get warm no matter how I try.” 

I sighed, relenting to the Fool’s logic if nothing else. I lay down beside him and moved closer until our brows nearly touched. This close, I could perceive the newly dawning shade of his eyes. They seemed now the color of parched wheat. 

I draped an awkward arm over the Fool’s shoulders. His body was hardly warm, and for a moment I uselessly wished he were Starling. While she wasn’t always pleasant company, I craved her warmth at my back. The Fool shifted almost imperceptibly but did not shirk me off. Gooseflesh had dotted his skin from the chill. He was curled like a cat, a slender hand resting under his cheek. He lowered the knees he’d drawn to his chest to make room for me, and I draped a loose arm around his middle. If anyone had been awake, it might have served to draw more suspicion—holding the Fool as I would a woman—but as we resettled, I felt my shiver begin to ease.

The slight tremors that still ran through him resonated through us both. I could tell the elfbark had been taking its toll on him. No matter how insufferable it made him, I was worried about his cheerless spirit of late. It was far too unlike the Fool I knew.

For a time I listened to the quiet rhythm of his breathing. The certitude of my friend’s presence was lulling. I closed my eyes and endeavoured to rest, but the dream had left me hopelessly on edge.

Whenever I thought of Molly I thought of our child, and the sorrow of the future I had forsaken roiled in me anew. I tried to chalk off what the dream had ignited in me to an inevitability rather than a flaw in my design. A natural reaction after one too many nights spent alone under the immense blanket of my loneliness, yet it had felt like a reprieve. It proved that I was still human, still a man of my own will. 

How long had it been since I became naught but my king’s instrument; a mere weapon that bent to the whims of those who wielded me? 

There was a part of me that was grateful. It had been a long time since I had experienced the gauzy comfort of a blissful dream. If nothing else, I was glad to have been spared the horrors of being caught in the throes of another Red Ship raid, doomed to live through the agony of those I could not save. And the discomfort of understanding even a fraction of my King's anguish.

I opened my eyes before my mind’s eye could produce the sights and smells and sounds. 

The Fool’s shoulders were rigid. I could tell from the line of his jaw that he clenched his teeth. 

“You’re still shivering. Put your back to me,” I said pointedly. Sleep was eluding me anyway.

“Perhaps,” the Fool agreed quietly, though he made no effort to move. Instead he stared at me, curiosity glittering in his eyes.

“Please speak of it no more,” I pleaded, aware I had no need to elaborate. “I tire of being the target of your antics.”

“Ah, but I’m afraid you shall always endure that honor,” hummed the Fool. “My antics, as you put it, are wholly dependent on the reactions they garner. And your reactions, bastard, are too enjoyable.”

His use of that word startled me for a moment, then I decided the elfbark had all but dislodged the flimsy lock he kept on his clever mouth.

“You know it is more than that.” I insisted, feeling as tired as if I were explaining myself to a child. “To even think of them, of her, is to risk inviting Regal’s wrath upon them. Yes, I am deeply ashamed, but not because I long for a woman’s touch like any man.”

I more felt than saw the Fool smirk. “Speak for yourself.”

I shot him an incredulous look. “Surely you are no stranger to that of which I speak.”

“That is neither for me to tell, nor for you to know.” The amusement was plain in his voice. 

 “Quit your riddling, Fool. Surely even you must have had your share of passions.” The seriousness of my question fled, reverting to the customary goading between boys.

I thought back to all the rumors at court of the Fool supposedly snubbing off advances from interested serving women. It was true that none at court had found his colorless demeanor and inhuman eyes pleasing let alone attractive. Those who braved his eccentricities were taken with his mystery, craving his recognition without the reciprocation they'd offer to a potential mate. He’d boldly dismissed the few drawn in by his strange witticisms at court, claiming their fascination with him was more akin to the longing one sports for an exotic bird they wished to put on display. Privately, I had always thought his willful dismissal of any interest directed his way did little to aid his cause. But even as he’d mocked and reproached any attempt anyone had ever made to win his fancies, I had figured he’d kept his own yearnings to himself.

There had been a rumor once, about a garden maid who often snuck up the stairwell to his chambers, and the Fool rarely invited attention he did not seek. 

“Ah. It seems he questions my virtue!” The Fool feigned offense. “Oh Fitz, I may be a fool but a saint I am not.”

“I don’t understand.” I muttered half-heartedly.

In truth, I was aware of the pleasure he took in getting a rise out of me, but my mind wandered and groped for any hope of a distraction. In the wake of the dream, all my thoughts of Molly and my child had poured out like a flood tide. How had I clung to the sweet memories of a less unburdened past when I felt such longing for the present? It put me in two minds, I knew I sought to be a father to my child, and yet I longed to return to the innocence of bygone days. 

I left my reverie, and realized the Fool’s eyes were on me. Glee crept back into his voice. His next words were a low, coquettish drawl. “Would you like the answer, my dear?” 

“Fool,” I said, warningly.

“It is in my nature to pursue my curiosities you see, and so it has occurred to me. One must wonder of the Skill's true depths. Does it transcend the bounds of desire, drawn from one bucket to the next like clean water from a wellspring? Could a man feel another’s inclination and find himself helplessly alighted as well? Could two Skilled beings twine as one in a Skill-shared joining so potent as to defy all points of separation? Could such an unlikely oneness of mind and form truly exist? It is time's oldest question. Are we solitary creatures by nature, or is it nature that unites us? Are we bound by our differences, or alike as the bird that shares the flight of a bee? For I have read texts, Fitz, that speak at length of squashing any notion that man must be separate from his fellows. Texts that posit man’s isolation is but the result of losing sight of that which is part of one’s own flesh. Ah,” He took a breath. “My heart pounds at the thought!” 

I knew not how to rein him in when he got like this. The thought of my carnal desires reflecting in some way on the Fool invoked in me only a grim mortification. The warmth shared between us became equal parts confining and mortifying.

Blood rose in my cheeks. “You are not making a mote of sense,”

“Am I not?” the Fool sounded delighted. “Why, I see that Starling’s words to me ring true. Did you know you blush like a maiden, my fair princeling?” 

I did not grace that with a reply.

“Besides my dear Fitz, what need have I for sensibility? It is your task to make decisions. Think,” he reached out and tapped my forehead with the tip of a cool finger. His simpering gaze was astounding. “Think, think.”

“Actually, I would quite like not to think of anything at all tonight.” I countered, even as I heard the petulance in my plea.

“Well, at that you have already failed.” He annoyed me by pointing out. Did he goad me merely because he was upset he’d shared the heat of the dream?

“Is there a purpose to this nattering, Fool,” I chided with an asperity I did not entirely feel. 

“Patience, boy,” the Fool’s voice abruptly lost its tenor. His pupils were large in his eyes as he gazed at me. “There is a poem you know, I have managed to only grasp its shoddiest translation. Its title is not a word that exists in the tongue of your folk or mine. In it, the poet professes his desire to seek oneness with the world, for sealing oneself in the hearts and minds of others must, surely, be the truest path to immortality. The more folk one loves and influences, who love and influence him in return, the stronger the mark one leaves upon the world in his eventual passing. He proposed that solitary as one might feel, nature is inherently a sum of its parts, complementary forces that share time and space; and thus one seeks companionship, like a midge drawn to light. It is hearts and minds, Fitz, that we seek to conquer. Is there anything sadder than the shepherd who tends and cares for his cattle, yet lingers in no one’s memory? The more relationships people form, the more attuned they become to that which connects us all.

Perhaps the writer was Skilled, for he posed that the closest a mortal can come to such a oneness is to seek it in another of his kind. A world whittled down to a person?” He giggled. “Can you believe it, Fitz? How foolish and wonderful!” His dull eyes grew mirror-bright, and I was suddenly afraid he would go nose-to-nose with me as he was wont to do with that old rat-headed scepter of his. The thought stymied any nuance I might’ve otherwise gleaned from his words. But when he searched my eyes, his stare was grave. I found I could not meet it.

The Fool’s words only brought me back to Molly, my candlemaker, the wild hoyden of my youth in her furling red skirts, her face like a plum on a warm afternoon, beads of salt in the shine of her hair…

Had it been the Fool’s intention to remind me of what I had lost? I could never tell with him. He was my dearest friend, yet how often had I become the subject of his derision? Did he make fun of me when he mimicked Chade’s chiding mannerisms? Did he mock me in my misery now, for confiding in him? Even when he meant well, he seemed always to speak of too much at once. There had been times his quick tongue had sparked a rage in me like no other, for he'd either been wilfully heedless or dismissive of the disconcerting weight of his own prophesying. Attempting to combat his wordplay was like clashing swords, and my parries were often ineffective against his onslaughts. 

I swallowed, finding my voice. “You are saying stupid things just to rile me, is that it?” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.” He grinned solicitously, but his voice was draped in sarcasm. “Besides, you are already riled, with no help from me! No, sir! Unless,” he paused dramatically. “You would like my assistance?”

“Cease this drivel. It is not an apt discussion between men.”

The silence that followed was long. I will admit I knew a moment of uncertainty. I did not wish to hurt my friend’s feelings, but I refused to have another conversation about “plumbing.”

“And if I were a woman?” It was almost a challenge.

For a handful of moments, I listened to the icy wind ruffle the facades of our makeshift tent and said nothing. I was baffled at how we’d arrived here. Had Starling’s ridiculous aspersions finally poisoned his mind? Had he stumbled--half-witless on elfbark--and cracked his head? The Fool, when he slinked into one of his ebullient moods, could talk circles around the most loquacious philosopher in his own monastery, but to broach such a subject willingly was uncanny, even for him. 

I could not combat the seed of doubt my friend’s words planted in me. And despite my disinclination, part of me longed to return to the simplicity of the dream. 

I stared at the Fool. His lashes cast thin shadows over his cheeks, and the sticky golden light of the fire graced his lean neck. In the time we’d spent apart, his face had lost all traces of its boyish roundness. The angularity he had taken on made him appear all the more strange. He’d swept his loose hair to one side and stray strands spilled down his blanketed shoulder like spooled silk. I swallowed, and the Fool’s eyes widened. He fixed me with a small, enamoured smile. I found that I could not fight the tenderness of his gaze, even as I wished to shrink away from it.

In the darkness, the Fool’s long fingers were splayed out under his chin, his features fine as a woman’s. The dwindling glow of flames threw the contours of his profile into sharp contrast and set his hair alight, making his face appear hazy as an apparition. His skin was spotless as paper, his high brow unlined. 

Did I make a poor portrait in contrast, with the gouged scars that ran amok over my face?

The sudden awareness between us was like new skin, still raw over the cut. I could feel his uncertainty as he watched me. 

The Fool surprised me by setting his hand on my arm where it rested across his slender waist. His long fingers were cool over my knuckles. The skin of his palm was smooth as the surface of a lake. Our joined wrists rose and fell slightly with the pace of the Fool’s breathing. An odd stillness overcame me. Not once had I given thought to our comradely affinity or the ease with which we shared touch. I wanted to get up and scramble away, brace for the frigid night air and allow it to quell me. I had spent far too much time alone, I surmised. My body merely longed for the touch of another. 

The Fool is in love with you. Starling’s words returned to me like the peal of a distant bell.

“But you are not.” It was all I could find to say. 

My words seemed only to embolden the Fool. A baiting smile split his mouth, and I braced myself. “How droll! Have a little imagination, Fitz. Then again, it is the nature of your kind, yes? You have been this way since the dawn of time, I reckon. You place much importance on matters of no consequence, yet give precious little thought to matters of true import. You toil in pursuit of securing your futures, yet cower from the prospect.” He shook his head like a man in mourning. “It saddens me so.”

“It is important!” I argued, inanely. “Men and women are not made the same.” A stray thought I had never dared to voice came to me. I spoke despite the cautionary knell in my head, hoping I did not somehow offend the Fool. “Do your kind not mate?”

The Fool narrowed his eyes, but an inciting smile played at his lips, as though he were considering a secret he shared with himself. “Well,” he turned that mirthful smirk on me. “Where do you suppose we spring from? Eggs? Roe? Seeds?” 

I instantly wished I hadn’t brought it up. 

"Truly, you never listen to anything I say!" He waggled his forefinger at me. "I have already told you whence and why I came to be."

"I do," I protested, if only to defend myself. "Save for when you're doused on Elfbark and getting on everyone's nerves."

The Fool lifted one shoulder in an unapologetic shrug. At least his shaking had lessened. Though the errant shiver still ran through him, our proximity made it so I could feel the Fool’s trembling through my own body. It had put me ill at ease. Now he seemed more like himself. His skin was even a touch cooler than it had been. I endeavoured again to sleep. I suspected I would not be at odds with myself had I not succumbed to my thoughts and longings of Molly; private thoughts that I feared had now been breached by my friend, through no fault of his own. He possessed no Skill. I could not expect him to know how to block it out any more than I could expect him to wield it. Lamely, I wished I had command over my sleeping mind.

“Fear not.” The Fool’s voice had lost its levity. His mouth was a thin, flat line. His expression strangely pensive. “I am not stirred by such simple hungers. Whatever you think you may have impressed on me, I am unswayed by it.” 

It was not the first time the Fool had responded to my thoughts like he’d pilfered them from my head, yet the note of thinly veiled self assurance in his voice was rankling. He was acting stranger than usual, I decided, and wondered if he feared the vulnerability that came with knowing we were now indelibly linked, our minds like doors thrown wide open to one another. Did he realize it would take almost no effort for me to barrel past his defences and plumb him for all his mysteries? 

I sensed my friend’s stubbornness, a trait he’d worn proudly since we were boys, and still could not find it in me to resist the question prying at my lips.

“You have never…Surely you must have. I mean, you don’t-“ I fought to find the right words. I felt foolish for fumbling over my tongue like a celibate. “Never?” I asked, despite myself.

The Fool looked at me, his expression distant and unknowable as it had always been. His eyes were aglint like coins and terribly near. 

Perhaps I’d gone too far. For as long as I’d known him, the Fool had been a private individual. Whenever we ventured too close to a subject he did not seek to confront, he seemed always to have an evasive riddle or diversion up his sleeve, his projectile wit a shield that batted away all scrutiny. The last time he had admitted a truth to me, it had been a bargain we’d struck. A secret willfully traded as boys.

“Do you offer me a trade?” The Fool’s eyebrows rose archly, shadows eclipsing his lips and mouth as the fire's frail light sputtered and winked. 

“I hate it when you do that,” I remarked dully. 

The Fool carried on like I hadn’t spoken. “I blush, I do! Most seek to trade in couplets and auguries and secrets, nary a trade in flesh! Tell me, Fitz. Is it the sweetness of release you seek?”

I was ashamed of how my face warmed at the Fool’s evocative performance, even as my bewilderment schooled me to silence. I should’ve known I wouldn’t get a straight answer. Though the Fool’s words were light and teasing, I could hardly conceal my disgust. I longed for the cool night air beyond the tent in hopes of ridding myself of this incitement. It was a frightening union of emotions to confront.

He spoke again, quietly, almost abashedly. “Would that I could, you know.”

But as I gawked at him, a cold note in his voice betrayed something of the shift of his mind. Where before the Fool had seemed taken by the idea, his expression was now pained. Divested of pretence, his eyes grew distant. I resigned myself to a moment’s contemplation, unable to divine why I bothered. 

The Fool had never shied away from our proximity, yet as I went on to wonder whether to bother gracing that enigmatic proclamation with a reply, I recalled the first time I had slept with Molly, of the vigor that had gripped me—it had not been my own. My king’s knowing, sheepish gaze in the days that followed, even my wolf’s intuition, had left me feeling effaced. Was I no more than the sum of the strangers that I let into my mind? No. Guilt submerged me at the thought. Nighteyes was my brother, he was my heart. Nighteyes and I were one soul despite the appearance of our flesh. And Verity…A king’s man had little right to deny his king, even when it came to his own private affairs. I understood that there was great trust in how close the Fool allowed me to be to him. Was it a trust he granted no other? But that too seemed short-sighted a conclusion. 

The Fool brought the back of his hand to his forehead and sighed dreamily. “Is my skin warm?”

I lifted my free hand and brushed the Fool’s brow with the heel of my palm. There was a slight dampness to his forehead, like he'd been crouching too close to a hearth. 

It hit me with the force of a rising tide. My lungs were tight, my limbs ached, and my skin felt thin as fish skin over my bones. I was so very cold. Rivulets of ice had seized my muscles. I watched the Fool’s throat move as he swallowed and diverted his eyes. It was as though his mind was somewhere apart from him, for he was silent a long time. 

I suddenly felt faint. I could not place the source of that surge of sensation, nor determine if it’d been mine to begin with. I removed my hand as swiftly as one might drop a pair of burning tongs and tried in vain to douse the feeling.

The Fool seemed to sense my discomfiture over our tangled position, for he shifted in his covers until he had his spine to me. We remain joined by the arm I still had wound around him, but it was heavy as a rotting log. 

“It is funny,” the Fool whispered, piercing the silence. I peered at the back of his head. “Sometimes I find our connection imperceptible, as mindless as the act of blinking or drawing breath. Other times I fear I am nearly consumed by my awareness of it, of you.”

“It’s overwhelming at first,” I conceded awkwardly. “You shall be able to drown it out. Over time.” I didn’t say: you must. I could not bear it otherwise. 

I would not admit to him that I did not perceive it as strongly. Was it more obvious to him now that he was aware of it? Perhaps I had grown so used to my King riding my mind that I could no longer tell the difference. How much thought had I truly given to the prospect of yet another individual occupying space in my mind? I was not sure I had much of a mind of my own left to give.

The prospect of sharing the Fool’s mind was different, like the place he'd carved out for himself in the world. His abode tucked in the upper bowels of Buckkeep tower: a wondrous realm of light, colors of every shade a man could dream, dolls with beads for eyes, painted birds and zipping fish and all the precious blooms of the earth. His sanctuary in times of turmoil. His room above the grandiose stairs of King Shrewd's realm must have once brought him the same comfort Burrich's old room had brought me. I recalled him, guarding that place like a cat prowling his territory, running up on prancing feet to avoid the whims of those who dubbed him a freak and sought to pick on someone smaller, weaker, softer. Someone who for all his bladed tongue, had no means of self defence. 

For a time I simply looked at him, half-expecting to find the sprightly boy I had known, rather than the sullen man who lay before me now. Time and grief were cruel masters, and he'd changed under their thumbs. A dreadful thought struck me. Had he mourned me? Did I have a part to play in his own isolation, or was the Elfbark affecting us both? I made to lift my arm from the Fool’s waist, my fingers brushing bare skin that was surprising in its warmth. Beneath the blanket, the woolly cloth of his shirt had ridden up slightly. The Fool’s breath hitched softly, his belly tensing under my hand at the contact.

It roused something in me, something I would not dare to name.

“Sorry,” I muttered. 

He made no response.

"I am no longer cold," I explained pointlessly.

“It's alright, Fitz.” His long, cool fingers brushed mine, gently ushering my wrist away.

I was relieved to let go. I respected my friend enough to trade satiating my curiosity for taking him at his word. And I had already intruded upon him once. I knew the Fool would never have done the same, though he was one of the few people who could breach my privacy if he so desired. Even dressed plainly and stripped free of his motley, he managed to sneak up on me like a wraith. There had been a time when this had unnerved me, for it had not felt dissimilar to the invisible minds of those Forged and long bereft of their faculties. The Scentless One, Nighteyes now dubbed him, for he’d eluded even the senses of my wolf.

Impervious to my Wit as he was, I feared the Fool was unaware of how open he was to me, for the sharing of the Skill had revealed him like winter mists parting to betray the noonday sun.

“We should sleep,” I said with a resigned sigh, more as a rebuke to myself than as encouragement for the Fool.

“Ah, but I fear you shall never sleep again,” he lamented, almost wistfully. “For the flame of young love holds you captive!" His frivolous grin made me wince. 

“You’re not helping,” I chided him, though I had to bite down on a smile. If nothing else, my poorly manned Skill-walls had seemed to lift both his shiver and his spirits. 

"Fear not, young man. I'm certain Molly still holds you to great esteem in a corner of her heart." 

I snorted. "My Molly is far too sensible to be so charmed by a lying bastard who abandoned her and our child." 

The Fool seemed to sense my dismay, for he fell silent. Then a jesting smile crept up his narrow lips. “You know I am immune to your charms, FitzChivalry Farseer,”

At the absurdity of the implication, I barked out an honest laugh. “I was not aware you thought I had the charm to guard against.” 

“Hush! For you are right,” the Fool concurred, singing the words like a giddy child. “And yet I bid thee be careful, Fitz, for there is one in our midst who extends her appetites so far and wide she would, perhaps, seek even the likes of a common pheasant, dubbing the charmless fair game.”

I was partly relieved he’d reverted to his ridicule, even as I wearied of the mutual hostility that seemed to wax and wane between Starling and the Fool like night and day. 

“I thought you two were friends now,” I hedged.

The Fool did not confirm or deny my assumption, and I dropped the subject. He raised his chin slowly, as if something had come over him. For a time he stared at me intently, a frown creasing his smooth brow. 

Too late I realised that I had been incorrect to deem his declaration some flavor of his typical mockery, for the Fool was suddenly lifting like a marionette on strings and straddling me. His movements were fluid as the rain that swept the streets of Buckkeep town. For a heartbeat, all I could do was stare up at him like a man soaked.

"Say the word, Fitz, and I will find my strength." The Fool halted, waiting for me to speak. His cool fingers moving down my face, tracing the broken ridge of my nose. I could not find my voice, nor will my muscles to relax. I might’ve resisted, had the intensity of his expression not startled me. The Fool’s eyes were disarming in the fleeing light of the fire. 

"Fool?" My voice was brittle as I frowned up at him.

“Do you wish to bed someone tonight?” the Fool proposed in a small, sultry voice that didn’t seem entirely his own. His fixed stare was spellbound, proving far weightier than his weightless perch over me.

I was in plain disbelief of the provocative curl of his voice. His intonation left little room for misinterpretation. This went beyond his typical brand of sheep eyes and playful flirting, and my doubts were ineffective against it. 

Anger rose in me. Why was the Fool toying with me? Had I not suffered enough misery on this journey already? I was in no mood for his tricks this night. I was about to say as much, but something in the Fool’s face stopped me. His expression was intently calm. A challenge playing in his lusterless eyes. 

I was certain then, that this was all some terrible mistake, brought on by the spectre of our sudden bond. There was no point in pitying myself, or being cross with him.

“Fool,” I warned. “You know not what you are doing.”

Later I would marvel at the weakness of my objection. For a moment, my traitorous heart raced and the heat of inclination governed me. The Fool’s breaths grew quick and shallow. His airy hair curtained his face, shadowing the desirous slant of his eyes. It was so unlike him, I was struck dumb.

“No, Fitz,” the Fool intoned. “I know only what I have known and grown surer of knowing since my fate twined with yours.” 

I made to pull away, but the Fool traced my jaw with fingertips light as the tip of a quill. My blood stirred. I felt my thoughts falling away from me. I drew a deeper breath to gather myself. His touch was not the coarse graze I would have expected of a man’s caress. Tenderness took me as intimately as that hands that ran over my skin. My stomach turned like I stood on the verge of a drop from a great height. It was not an unfamiliar feeling, and yet the nights I had spent with Molly seemed but a distant memory, now. Too long. It had been too long since I had felt the need to consider mere appetites of the flesh. It was the simple urge of a beast seeking a mate, I reasoned. Then, I reached for Nighteyes, but his mind was clasped in buoyant sleep. Did he deliberately draw himself away from me? I had not even the capacity to be hurt. 

I felt the Fool's racing pulse as I caught his delicate wrist to steady us both. Wrestling for a semblance of control, I gripped the Fool’s shoulders, intending to shove him away. He swayed like a twig in the wind as a result. My desperate attempt to urge him away became an effort to deter him from losing his balance. He gripped my shoulders. He was not physically heavy, but his slender strength often took me by surprise. 

His expression grew very still. Anticipation hummed between us like lyre strings drawn taut. I could scarcely identify its source. Perhaps I was aware of the shameful response of my body to his, but I bade myself not to think too deeply of it.

His cheeks were suffused pink with the rise of the blood underneath. I opened my mouth to speak and found nothing kind nor reproachful to say. I must’ve looked like a gasping fish, for the Fool smiled fondly. His keen gaze dropping to where my arms girdled his waist. Never before had he reacted in such a way to our nearness. Only days ago had we found ourselves soaking wet from tickling for fish by the river, heedless of time and each other and laughing like children.

The memory brought to mind Ketricken’s gentle chiding as she spoke out on Starling’s behalf of her disdain for my attentions to the Fool. Her words had only grated on my patience with Starling. I had been hurt and annoyed at her uncanny ability to stack up assumptions about me in ways only a minstrel’s imagination could fathom. I wracked my mind for differences in my own behavior, but could find little fault in anything that I’d done. I had only looked after him because he’d been ill. I took a breath, realising I’d retreated into my head.

Awareness of the Fool’s immediacy returned to me. He leaned over me. Loose strands of his hair curled over my shirt like ivy. My tongue was a wad of cotton in my mouth. Elfbark was potent, but it did lose efficacy over the hours. I suspected our bond, more Wit-like than Skill-like; as Nighteyes had pointed out, was not as susceptible to its numbing. 

“What has gotten into you, Fool?” I demanded gruffly. 

The Fool carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. He spoke softly, as if sharing a secret. “I have come here to fulfil a purpose, a purpose that leaves no room for matters of the heart, this I know. Though, the heart has not granted me the mercy of extinguishing its longing.” He brought his free hand to the side of my neck and the fascination was plain in his eyes. “Therefore, I suppose, heed it I must.”

The Fool had always possessed a lyrical voice, but now, his tone was treacly, and he spoke like someone under a thrall. He laid a hand on my bicep, and I fought the distractingly pleasant sensation. I returned the Fool’s smitten gaze with trepidation, desperately wanting to tear away. The Fool was lissome for a man, I believed the attracted pull in my gut was brought on by that discrepancy. 

The Fool’s earnest affection had unmanned me often. I do not know what kept me from rebuffing his touch then, I recall only that I’d been unable to bear the solemnity of his gaze.

“How long have we known each other, Fool? I know you. And this is unlike you. Whatever’s come over you, I know it to be my fault. I let my longing for Molly stir my appetites. I did not think it would affect you like this.” I steeled my resolve. “Gather your wits.”

"My wits, Fitz? Shouldn't the wise recognize the witless?" He put his brow to mine. "For Witted I am not."

His riddling only served to further incense me. It proved he heard me, but did not heed me. I not proud to admit, had it been anyone other than the jester of my youth; I would have responded with violence, but I could not bring myself to risk injuring the Fool.

He moved with preternatural grace. It was though the magic that fogged his mind had found purchase on me in return. I wanted to draw him in my arms, I wanted to confront our differences. Then, explore that which we shared. I wanted to draw air from his mouth. I felt very unwise. Then I realized my feelings were emanating from him, fierce as the glow of a sconce in a darkened hall. Somehow I was certain I experienced only what the Fool was choosing to reveal to me, despite the heat cast on him like a glamour. 

The Fool's blunt fingernails slipped into my hair, tracing my scalp with the attentiveness of a physician dressing a septic wound. Grave certitude in his expression.

As if apart from myself, I watched my hand rise to hold the side of his face. Puppeted by the fine thread that bound us, I pushed the Fool’s feathery hair back, my fingers tangling in the locks as I tucked stray wisps behind his ear. The Fool hummed his approval and tilted his head, trapping my hand between his cheek and the crook of his shoulder. His skin was misted with sweat, and I feared his body was rapidly burning its reserves. 

He turned his neck aburptly, exposing the graceful line of his throat. He peeled back his collar with a long finger and traced his collarbone in a display fit for a courtesan. I gaped, my face warm with mortification. I could not consolidate the elegant individual straddling me with the image of the boy who’d shamelessly capered around Buckkeep castle in my youth and slinked into my chambers from the shadows like a friendly sprite.

“If I were to speak truthfully, would you call me a liar?” he whispered, leaning closer. “For it is not I who is immune to your charms, Fitz, but you who remain resistant to mine,” the Fool’s voice was husky. I felt his eyelashes graze my cheek. “Or shall you prove me wrong this night, my dear?”

He put a hand on the center of my chest. Suddenly, I was up on one elbow and leaning towards the Fool. What stirred in between us now was not unlike the giddy roil of nerves I had felt when I had first successfully Skilled. I knew the others dozed not far away, but the shadows were thick enough to form a partition. The embers of our bonfire became veins of light in the yurt’s placid darkness.

The Fool made a low pleased sound in his throat, opening up to me like a budding flower. The Fool's hips parted underneath the wolly fabric of his blanket between us, and I was suddenly uncertain any man could find it in himself to resist such wiles. Deft fingers ghosted up the curve of my chin, the uneven slope of my nose, the edge of my brow. His touch was questing but unreserved, as if he’d long committed the trajectories of each of my scars to memory.

"Please," I protested gruffly. "Return to yourself, friend." 

He brought his mouth to the top of my scalp, pushing back strands streaked white from an old scar, as if in a bid to take the sore reminder away with a touch. Then, his lips moved to my brow and he kissed the depression above the bridge of my nose. The brush of his narrow lips seemed to linger between my eyes. 

Had Molly done such a thing during our stolen moments together, I would have convulsed with pleasure. 

For a brief, bright minute, I felt my body confuse his desire for the breadth of my own. I froze, my unfeeling arm wound tightly around the small of the Fool’s back, where I could feel the lean muscles of his spine knotting pleasingly. The honest hunger in his eyes was difficult to parse. I felt uneasy from my temple to the heels of my feet. I tried to clear my head to no avail.

The triumph was plain on the Fool’s face. As if to cement his victory, he brought his face close to mine, the tip of his tongue grazing my ear lobe. I am not proud to admit I shivered.

Above me, the Fool was svelte as a wax idol, inspecting me like I was a grain of wood he sought to carve to his liking,

I felt the Fool’s breath on the back of my palm. When he brought my knuckles to his mouth, the chills that overcame me had little to do with the cooling yurt. This seemed to delight the Fool, for he drew my hand to his thighs, rumpling the fabric of his stockings. A detached part of me noted how, even in the throes of heat, he did not take off his shirt. Fine. Let him remain intent on keeping his secrets. Not without force, I snatched his wrist to stop him. He did not resist, using the momentum to pull my hand below his shirt instead. I could only fatuously gape as he guided my hand to the small of his back with a boldness that did not convey inexperience. Then, he paused. His expression almost troubled, as if he was worried I would uncover something he did not wish me to see. A shiver unsteadied him. He gazed at me openly, and I felt a familiar jolt of awareness of him. His fingers knotted in the sleeve of my shirt so tight I felt the bones of his knuckles. 

For a dreadful moment I worried I had hurt him in my aggression. 

“Is this human desire? I believed my feelings pure, seeking to possess only the companionship of your heart,” his words were a hoarse whisper. “And yet I want you to touch me.” 

The slender hands that held mine guided me past his back to his flat belly. He turned a beatific smile on me. I had just mustered the resolve to elbow the Fool before he ventured any lower, when he froze. 

Silver tears shone in his bronze eyes. He appeared a weary traveler seeking a place to rest his head as he moved to close the distance between us. He leaned over me until our chests met. My heart skipped a beat. Awareness of the Fool’s body flooded my mind, scalding my veins like sunlight eating through a dry leaf. 

The sincerity of his gaze was unbearable. His narrow mouth quirked as he looked at me, his hands finding the nape of my neck with all the persistence of an open flame. The faint scent of spiced tea was on his breath. Nerves curled up my spine as he raised a lean wrist to hold my face. His eyes danced with curiosity. Did he skirt the edge of a craving he had never sought to satiate? There was something not quite human about the way he drew me into his embrace. It put me in mind of the tales I’d heard sailors drunkenly tell around taverns in my youth. Mermaids that possessed the guile to bewitch man, woman and beast. My mind reeled. I dared not comprehend what had been magnified by the thin veneer of our Skill bond.

I fumbled around the Fool’s forearm briefly before setting a firm, dissuading hand to his elbow, whether to steady him or myself I did not know. 

Firelight shone on the exposed column of his throat with the slight lift of his chin. I saw also the glazed look in his eyes behind his lowered lashes. How could my affinities for Molly have affected him so? 

“Ah, FitzChivalry,” the Fool spoke in my ear. “You have captivated me for far too long. A fool you named me aptly, for my heart beats for yours." his words were a whisper. "I may abdicate all that I was. All that I am, and all that I will be--to spend but a moment inside you--to feel you and all that is a part of you.”

I knew a moment’s weakness. 

“No, Fool,” my voice broke over the words, even as the confession moved me to near speechlessness. “I can’t.”

At first, the Fool didn’t react, then I felt him turn to stone in my arms. The lean muscles in his back were wound tight. He gasped shakily, like a drowning man coming up for air, then crawled away like I’d struck him. The Fool’s eyes were blown wide as he pushed off of me and scrambled back to his pallet on hands and knees. The glimpse I had of his expression was severe.

We both caught our breaths, weaning off the heat that had stirred us to lameness. I tried to curtail my horror, gruffly clearing my throat and trying to govern the uncomfortable stiffness between my legs. 

The Fool curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around his knees and pulling them close to his chest protectively. The taut line of his shoulders grew terribly stiff. He turned away from me like he could not bear to look at me.

I was relieved, but it hurt to watch him recoil from me like I’d somehow harmed him. It was unfair, for it was he who had so uncharacteristically come onto me.

I wanted nothing more than to leave the oppressive darkness of the yurt and take my watch and look at the stars twirl in the night sky and think of nothing at all, but seeing the Fool hunched in on himself like a berated child, I could not leave him.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he spoke without his usual eloquence. It was disheartening to listen to him repeat the phrase frantically, like Burrich when he cursed me for overfeeding a foal or forgetting to air out the barn after a long night of drinking.

My heart turned over in my throat. “No,” I objected gently. “I should be the one saying sorry.”

A beat. The Fool’s shoulders were still shaking.

“Thank you,” he said faintly. “For stopping me.” The words seemed timid and pained. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought he sounded as heartsick as I’d felt when I’d risen to find myself apart from Molly. 

“Eda and El forgive me, I couldn’t get a hold of my head! I betrayed your wishes. You must know I would never…” he scrambled for words, his voice hoarse. “I didn’t intend–“

“Fool. Stop,” I demurred. “You need not explain yourself to me. I am only glad this has not changed anything between us.” 

“Has it not?”

The ruefulness in the Fool’s voice gave me pause. It hadn’t been the right thing to say. 

“I mean, you are not to blame. Perhaps I have been…frustrated from constantly having to shield my mind from Regal’s forsaken coterie, and Kettle’s tedious game pieces, and having to resist seeking out Molly in my dreams.” 

“Ah. Blame can come in pairs, Fitz.” 

It smote me to hear the indignation he directed at himself. I could not explain it, yet I felt strangely bereft in the sudden loss of shared body warmth as the Fool held himself away from me. He had been acting rash enough lately, and while I knew the elfbark was to blame for his poor temperament, his resulting behaviour had grated on my nerves more times than I wished to tell him. A new Skill-link, tenuous as ours was, was as unpredictable a force as any.

“Regardless, Fool. I am only angry with myself, and we should be glad we stopped before we shamed ourselves.” The Fool flinched at that like a tapering candle at the end of its wick. I carried on, needing to reassure us both. “You did not have your wits about you, and I feared what you would reveal to me in your stupor. It would not have been right.” I mustered a weak laugh. “Truly, it was terrifying, hearing those honeyed words leaving that mocking tongue of yours.” 

I had been hoping to put the exchange behind us, but the Fool was eerily quiet. His guarded silence swarmed the room. 

I didn’t veil my concern. “Fool?”

“Yes?” His voice was troubled and small. 

“This is unlike you.”

“So it is, Fitz. So it is.”

“No, I mean it is unlike you to recede into yourself."

He contemplated a moment. “And what good shall talking do? I have willfully betrayed your wishes.” He was on the verge of tears. “And I do not understand why.” I could tell the memories of Regal’s ransacking of his mind were still too fresh. He spoke with the detached tenor of a man who did not entirely trust himself. 

I did not have the heart to tell him I was the intruder who’d crept into his mind. It was a truth I did not wish to keep voicing for fear it would divide us.

When I did not respond, the Fool said, in a voice ripe as bile, “Fitz? Have I lost you?”

“What?” I tried to make sense of the question and dismissed it as stupid. “Of course not.”

Perhaps in my own searching, the small link between us found me, for an old memory came to me. One of the worst nights of my life. Bright round eyes set in an impish face and the floating dandelion tuft of his hair, appearing at Burrich's side as I lay wishing myself dead in the wake of a devastating beating from the man who should’ve been my mentor. The man who had sought only to break me and succeeded in ways I never wished to relive. 

In taking care of Smithy, in a gift that had saved my first mission to the Mountains that had claimed Prince Rurik’s life. In every moment, in every memory that wove the tapestry of my early years, time and again, the Fool had found me in my loneliest hours at Buckkeep, appearing always at my side to commiserate or counsel. Between jibes and jeers, his spry presence had lifted me in spirit, and reassured me that I had an ally in him. I had not known why the Fool sought me, but I knew his fellowship had been a familiar refuge in our court of intrigues and cold, blank stone.

I feared the Fool knew more of loneliness than he let on. Together, perhaps we had been the loneliest creatures in Buckkeep, for such forlornness permeated the Fool’s words now. Privately, I wondered if the Fool had kept his own turmoil from me, or if I’d simply been too caught up in my own world to notice.

“I told you,” I insisted. “I am not angry with you.”

The Fool drew a deep breath. “Oh don’t you worry, I shall be angry enough for the both of us.” His tone was disconsolate.

“Stop it,” I said with finality. “If anything, the blame lies with the Skill.” 

His doubt lingered in the night air like dust after a storm. Though I was not convinced he believed me, I took the Fool’s silence for acquiescence. 

Then he spoke into that silence. 

“It is far bigger than us, Fitz. That which I must do. That which we must do together, as White Prophet and Catalyst.” He was silent for another long bout. I made no attempt at interruption, aware that he needed me to listen. After a time, he continued, softly, “I shall not jeopardize it. And so, I do not pick fruit from the forbidden tree, tall and beautiful in my garden as it may blossom.”

“I don’t understand,” I muttered inanely. I could not think of anything else to say, but I could tell I’d somehow hurt him. 

“As you said, a terrible trick of the Skill, we’ll deem it. Agreed?” I could hear the pacifying smile in his voice. It was at odds with the rigidity of his spine. I feared the Fool had spoken as plainly and directly then as he had in all the years I’d known him.

“Do you fear you have shown too much of yourself to me?” I asked quietly, even as I dreaded the answer. 

“No,” the Fool spoke with sober certainty. “I trust you.” I could see he still warred with himself, but he flipped onto his back, his shiftless gaze surveying the defiant blackness of the yurt’s domed roof. “That which bothers me is not physical, Fitz. Perhaps there will come a time when you will comprehend the significance of your place in the circle, and why you are the wedge I must leverage to set all on its rightful path, though by then I am certain you will have grown sick of my saying it.” I watched him close his eyes and turn on his side. “For both our sakes, I hope that time does not come too soon, that it is stalled in its relentless race towards us.”

His eyes opened. The avidity of his stare was too intense to behold and I looked away. He had rearranged his bedding so that we still lay close, but there was over an arm’s length gap between us now. I was relieved he’d found his inhibitions, I knew also there was something he was not saying, but I was weary, and there was no purpose in attempting to pry it out of him.

“Do you know what I fear most, Fitz?” the Fool whispered softly, in an entirely different tone than the lilting hum he’d employed to seduce me.

I nodded to convey I was listening. 

“When I was still green to King Shrewd’s court, I often wondered what it meant to find myself in this place and time. One might believe a pair of lives bound by fate is a wondrous notion, but it is not always so.” His face dropped, and for a moment, he seemed to be staring off into a distant memory. His words grew cold and dolorous. “It can even be a tool for great evil.”

I nodded slowly, trying to understand, as such conversations with the Fool often went. But I could not grasp the entirety of his meaning. I had never been able to extract good or evil from what I deemed right or wrong in my estimation.

“In truth Fitz, I do not know if any of us can claim true emancipation from history, still I labored to view it only in the context of how it affects you and I. And I had my doubts, knowing full well the possibility of a White finding his Catalyst only for his Catalyst to defy him, and yet there may be such a pair veiled somewhere behind time’s curtain. Not all White Prophets in the past been fair to their Catalysts, you know. Can you imagine it? Two beings brought together by fate only to find themselves at odds. I have always been frightened you would reject me. I feared I came close to rejecting you myself, the night my King lost his life. I tried in vain to shed the moniker, to deny my fate. I believed you were dead Fitz, and my whole world fell silent. Only in that silence, I found you in my arms.” His voice shook, and the words seemed to pour out of him. “Perhaps I am fortunate, for loving you has been the easiest of all the tasks given to me, and still, propel you I must.” He paused for breath. “There are times I fear that guilt will crush me.” 

My thoughts swam. While I reciprocated my friend’s love, the Fool’s lyrical proclamations of his feelings were often jarring. I lifted my eyes to the Fool’s, but I could think of nothing to say. The Fool gazed at me in return as if expecting something; his expression dark and unreadable in its depths, like the sea at night.

I cleared my throat. “You speak as though you have abandoned your own desires to help fulfil someone else’s destiny.”

“That is where you are gravely mistaken, Fitz. For my destiny is no more separate from yours than the boughs of a great willow may consider themselves apart from their roots.”

“You know your answers only beget more questions, right?” I grumbled. 

Had we not been newly Skill-linked, I would have brushed off the Fool’s masterful avoidance of all scrutiny directed at him for what it was, but in the moment I found that I could not. “Speak plain. I asked you what you desire.”

“What I desire,” he repeated the words like a child trying a foreign sweet. “Oh Fitz, whenever will you listen to me without turning me into a puppet, doomed to croak my lines over and over? I desire to change the world.” He let out a small laugh. “I desire our destiny,” he went on. “At least until it diverges, and our threads are disentangled.”

Once again, he riddled like a man possessed.

Despite his fervent denial, for a moment he seemed almost swayed, a flash of longing behind his dull gaze. Then his expression shifted and his eyes were clear. “Besides, I do not sacrifice my desires so much as curtail them. You and I, Fitz, are not even the threads that spool from the great loom, but the tiny specks of grime that coat the threads. But if we play our parts well, we will have saved the world. Does that not convince you of your significance?”

"No,” I said, wearily. My tone must’ve been sharper than I intended, for the Fool shrank.

“Well, there are stories I could tell you that you would never believe, but I will say this. If I fail to fulfill my purpose, after everything I have done, everything I am yet to do...” he stopped short, and I could not quite tell if he carefully chose his words or bit back on a sob or fell headlong into the mist of days to come. “For the year I believed you truly dead, I had thought I could eschew my purpose, shed it like an old coat, and yet, fate found me when it brought you back to me. I know now I cannot walk away any more than a mother may abandon her newborn babe.” He repeated words he’d already spoken. “All is as it should be, and we too, are who we should be.” The sudden intensity in his ochre eyes frightened me. It was as if his misery had turned into a fire that had long coiled in him, and been ignited anew. “Remember?”

The sinuous shadow of an alighting dragon, its mammoth wings outstretched, the roar of a mob of jittery festival goers. A woman with hair like the Fool’s and a tumbler’s chiming laugh. 

Ancient dread gripped me. For a breath I feared I was on the verge of another seizure, but it passed as quickly as it had come. I exhaled deep.

We lay looking at each other. Then I thought I understood the wild determination in the Fool’s topaz eyes. The meek firelight limned his features like filigree, delineating the sharp curve of his jaw and the inviting jut of his collarbones; the assurance in his long-limbed and slight form made him appear at once a friend and a stranger. 

“I do not know what to say,” I decided. I knew it was not what he needed from me.

The Fool laughed, soft and genuine, but soliloquized no more. He balked at admitting anything else, as if he fought a truth he’d long known and failed to wholly grasp. I knew well that there was no attempting to wring more truths from him when he became evasive. I fought for something to say, for the Fool’s ominous tone had left me cold.

“You have a gift,” I admitted with a sigh. “Of using many words while conveying very little.”

The Fool lifted a slender shoulder in a shrug and found my eyes. There was a trace of his familiar jester’s smile in them. “Only to folk unwilling to understand! Perhaps a message is not conveyed until it is understood, but what am I to do if a message is conveyed to one unwilling to understand?” He smirked, repeating words that seemed from another time. Another life.

“Or someone unwilling to make people understand.” I barked back, sounding less clever than I’d intended. 

“Riddling a riddler, are we? Oh, however shall you fair!”

“Take it how you will,” I muttered, but I was grinning in return. I knew then we would put this night behind us and return to our boyish deliberations. Relief swam in me. 

Slowly, the Fool’s smile fled. “A long day awaits us, Fitz. I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

I spoke into the quiet when the Fool’s breaths did not betray the deep exhalations of slumber. “I should have known better. Verity warned me I struggle to shield myself from the Skill's intrusive nature whether I'm in a fight or in love. Sometimes it deems me no different than a dog in heat.”

I wanted nothing more than to drop the subject, but I felt I could only escape the conversation by reinforcing my guilt.

“Skilling or love,” the Fool repeated, like he wished to correct me. “It is all the same to me, Fitz. All the same.”

We did not exchange another word, but I think we both struggled to sleep that night, caught in contemplation of the yawning path before us, and the vagaries of a fate that inextricably bound us.

Beloved, 

I do not think often of that night, but at times, when I miss you most, I have felt it leap to the forefront of my mind with the force of a red-tailed hawk diving to snatch a field mouse.

- Fin.