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[lastgunslinger]

He sleeps well and deep, in the realm of the Dream-lord, and when he wakens in his room, for a moment he is not sure where he is.

Then he remembers.

Roland turns onto his back and stretches, folding his arms behind his head, staring at the stone ceiling.

Except for the Library...this place could be Gilead. All that is missing is the gunslinger barracks, and the fields where Cort taught them their trade -- and for all he knows, they, too, are contained in the Dreaming.

It's eerie to know that he is in the land of the Third of the Seven. It is eerier to know that the Dreaming resembles his home in many ways.

And it is strangest of all that while Moiraine is here, somewhere, and presumably the Dream-lord is enfleshed somewhere here...he will not see the faces he knows when he walks the halls.

No harm, mayhap, in exploring a bit. He's hungry, and what Moiraine told him -- Concentrate on that, focusing your will, and you will find your way.

He dresses, leaves the bedroom, and leaves his apartment behind -- but his mind is more on Gilead, though, than on food.

The corridors, too, resemble the ones closest to the apartments he and his mother and father lived in, at home, with panes of colored glass illuminating the walls during the day, and torches at night. There's familiarity here -- deep familiarity -- and Roland is content to walk, for a time, and remember.

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[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

There is a window down one hall, where light flows through the stained glass in rays tinted with gold and color both.

It is there that a man stands, whip-thin and wiry, looking out at what might be a courtyard somewhere below.

[lastgunslinger]

For a moment -- am I looking at myself? -- for a moment he does not know who he sees.

And then he wonders how he ever could have mistaken the man for anyone else.

We can excuse Roland; the man is turned to the window.

Roland would never forget the face of his father.

As though in a dream: "Hile." One gunslinger to another. He fears. He hopes. He feels -- numb, almost.

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

Even as he is hailed, he turns quickly, alert -- not for this man the sort of distraction that would allow another to approach him unawares.

Tall and thin, with a handlebar mustache and guns slung in leather low on his hips; old guns, ancient and well-cared for, sandalwood grips gleaming in the light. Despite the elegance of the hall, he is dressed simply in black jeans and blue work shirt; angles and lines and sharp power, like a hawk.

This, then, is Steven Deschain, son of Henry, father of Roland, as he faces his son.

"Hile, gunslinger."

[lastgunslinger]

I took Cort's stick. I won. I'm a man.

Roland looks on his father's face, his own voice echoing in his memory, as well as his father's next words to him: You're a fool.

This isn't Milliways; Roland can't ask are you dead? And -- he'd know -- is this a dream? Is it?

It's all a dream. What is real?

Roland's shoulders and waist aren't quite so desperately thin as his father's; his right hand is still missing the first two fingers; he doesn't wear a mustache; he only wears one gun. But other than that...

Father and son.

In the High Speech: "It is well to see you in this place."

Gilead. The Dreaming. He's not sure which is which.

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

"And you."

Gunslinger to gunslinger, here, but also man to man, and approving: Steven's keen blue gaze moves over his only son, noting the changes in him.

"Though you look rough, it is well to look on you at all."

He glances away, out through the window at the courtyard as storm clouds gather in the distant sky.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland takes a few hesitant steps forward...and then a few more, more confident. He, too, observes the storm clouds.

"A long road."

The last gunslinger of Gilead --

-- or is he? A dream. A dream. All is dream.

"As thee knows." A half smile, at this; his hands are clasped behind his back.

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

"A long road, yes, and a hard one, to the Dark Tower." A sharp, slanting glance, as he says this, and then Steven, father of Roland, turns to his son.

"A hard one indeed." He takes a step, closing the distance between them, and grips Roland's shoulder with one strong hand.

"It is well, to see thee here. It is very well, Roland."

[lastgunslinger]

It feels real enough, that hand.

And does it not fill him with relief, to know after all this time -- Steven Deschain

(would understand)

understands, and is glad to lay eyes on him once more?

He bows his head for a moment, aware of his father there, beside him; aware that they stand in a square of fading light as the storm-clouds build; aware too that this is a respite granted him by ka, and that not all meetings are ill. This is not Milliways. This is the Dreaming.

(If I had lost you, Roland, I should have died.)

And so the gunslinger -- mayhap not tired, any longer, but weary of soul -- turns to his father and embraces him fiercely.

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

And for a brief space of time, the embrace is returned, as the father pulls his son close.

Perhaps a dream, perhaps not; for after all, in the Dreaming it may be that some things are more real than in the world beyond.

Roland's memory of his father's face shortly before Steven died is of that of a man worn hard and cruel by time and responsibility, and there is something of that in the man who stands with him now.

But there is also a kinder aspect to the eyes of Steven Deschain, as he looks on his son.

(look, Gabby, look you!)

A brief space of time, but that only, and is it enough? Is it not enough?

[lastgunslinger]

It is. More than Roland expected. Certainly more than he deserves.

The embrace is brief, yes; and when it is ended Roland looks on his father's face and says, quietly, hard, "Would you know anything of what is to come?"

For he knows that Steven Deschain can

(I have known for two years)

keep his own counsel when it suits him.

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

"I would."

No hesitation, there; hard and certain and coldly pragmatic is the last Lord of Light, the dinh of the Tet of the Gun, listening to a another gunslinger here in the hallway of near-Gilead as the storm grows outside.

"If you'd speak, I'd hear."

[lastgunslinger]

Roland speaks, then: of the last days of Gilead. Of Jericho Hill, and his escape. Of casting about for the trail of the man in black, Walter o' Dim, Marten Broadcloak that was. Of Tull, and of the way-station, and of Jake. Of demons and slow mutants, and letting Jake drop to hold palaver with the man in black in the golgotha. Of the beach, and of his lost fingers, and of his new tet. Of how they have been on the path of the Beam ever since.

It is an abridged version of the telling, of course. To give the whole story would mean standing there for hours. Yet Roland feels, somehow -- dream-logic, some might call it -- that his father knows all there is to know. That somehow, it comes across.

"The story isn't over," he finishes. "We're not through yet." A small smile. "We remember the faces of our fathers."

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

Silence, cold and intent, with unwavering focus, as Roland speaks and the other man weighs his words. A leader of men in Mid-World, of Gilead-that-Was, is Steven Deschain, and as such he knows, knows very well indeed, of the harsh things his son describes.

"A hard road." Silence, again. "But thee has done as well as thee might on it, I think."

[lastgunslinger]

Roland bows his head slightly, partly out of acknowledgement, partly out of respect...and partly out of relief.

Dinh of the Tet of the Gun, was Steven Deschain. Leader of the forces of the White.

And Roland's father, of course.

It's all right, he thinks hazily. I have done as well as I might.

Praise from his father was not quite so rare as praise from Cort, but that doesn't mean that his father often gave it.

He looks up into his father's eyes, and nods once, briefly. "Would you walk with me, for a time?" For once upon a time the two of them had walked the battlements of the castle, speaking little and saying much.

[29th-side-line.livejournal.com]

A glance out the window at the whirling storm clouds, as the world shivers slightly, and then he nods.

"I would. I will."

Steven nods to the corridor ahead of them, still clearly visible even in the fading light.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland, too, looks out the window -- and for a moment his shooter's eyes narrow, and he wonders if anything is amiss.

But then he looks to his father, and something in his expression lightens.

They set off down the corridor, moving neither fast nor slow, speaking every so often in low voices.

Roland can't shake the feeling that this is all a dream.

It is, a voice whispers. But isn't it all?