He looked at his judge leaving through the barred window of his door, each soft step echoing like a thump on his gut. His gut, he realized, as he walked to the hard bed. Not the heart, not the mind, not the soul. The gut. Silence fell as the steps faded in the distance and the last light of the lantern the guard held danced away through the window. Cold darkness waltzed in, anew and triumphantly, but, despite all, he smiled.

 

He loved this place, he realized. This solitude, this darkness, this cell he had been building around him since he remembered himself. In many ways, he felt more free here than anywhere else. It was the only place he could be himself. He could dance to music in his mind, laugh at jokes he made up, conjure images and paint deeds, wonder in places and fly to the skies and, he realized now, that he didn't really wanted to share that with anyone. Oh, he wouldn't have minded Tosquil to be there, or Horatio, Sheyla or any of his friends. He would welcome them even. But they were just visitors, allowed in and not offered access, not really.

​

It wasn't cruelty, ego or even greed that made him feel so. He didn't feel like a king, or a god in his solitude and he certainly didn't feel that the people he cared about weren't worth seeing this. Neither was it fear that kept this cell private, as he had once thought, a refuge from the world, a wall between him and the terrors of life as well as a wall between others and him. No, it was none of those things. It was just...home and the reluctance for sharing it was the child of a deep belief, down in his gut, that no one he had ever met, no one life, fate, chance, the gods or what-have-you, had brought in his way, would either understand or appreciate it, fully and in earnest and none would truly impr...

​

He chuckled and the empty cell echoed, as if the shadows chuckled along with him. Alright, maybe there was some ego in his solitude. But not the bad kind, he thought. Shouldn't the goal of all men be improvement? Wasn't life supposed to be a constant and tireless effort to go higher, further, to become better in all ways? In many ways his house of solitude was open. He invited any and all interested to visit and in their way, each and every one who had had changed his world a little. Be it by moving something here, or leaving a stain there, or just leaving lingering words to echo in time, his world, his house, his solitude, his self was a mosaic of images and words, of songs and laughs, of wounds and shouts that he had allowed people to leave and ways he had permitted them to leave a mark. But he chose which things to keep and he discarded those that didn't fit him. No one, ever, had been given the freedom to change things as they saw fit.

​

He smiled as he knew what had eluded him when he wrote about Celethil and the Daughter of the Wind, the one thing that made such stories so desirable and yet so hard to write in earnest. The common ingredient in all the great love stories, how Frederic and Lulhol made their ship fly, what kept Verna and Alfos together while they were enemies, the reason why Samael and Olria offered their lives without a second thought. And why people couldn't understand such friendships as Thorodin's and Emmet's, why Alquamor felt cursed in immortality without his Swans, how Sinradee chose to leave her people for Menree. It wasn't pain, desperation or dependence. Such things were lust, weakness, fear of solitude. True love, in any of its forms, is never any such thing. It is acceptance. Unreserved, fearless, total acceptance to allow another to change your own house, your own world, your own solitude, without restrictions. And it comes with a lack of willingness to compromise with anything less or, once known, for a world without. Because these people, the truly loving people trust, no, know in their gut, that any change their loved one brings is making their world better.

​

Loneliness raised her head, like a pet hearing its name when half asleep, begging with pale eyes to be petted. Ego raised his armored figure, metal sighing with strength at every move. Fear crawled behind him, long bony fingers chilling his spine. All three claimed lordship over his solitude, all three declared themselves the cause. He faced them all and he pondered and he realized.

​

He wasn't lonely, he was unwilling to accept anything else. He wasn't an egoist, for he ready, even eager to share. And he wasn't afraid, for he was ready to give anyone a chance. His words were his way. He didn't write to teach. He didn't write to live other lives. He didn't write to speak in symbolism and innuendo. He didn't write for anyone and he didn't write for him. He wrote for all. His words were windows to his house and he opened them as much as for him to look out and see the world through them, as for others to look in. It was an invitation to everyone who happened to look and then cared to knock the door. An invitation mingled, perhaps, with the thought somewhere, out there, one would pass and one would come that he would find any change a change for the better.

​

He smiled and turned to sleep easily, for while his penalty was near, he knew why he would be given it.