(no subject)

[lastgunslinger]

He has finished Vannay's book on New Canaan; when he perused the Library further he found a book entitled Tales of Markey Avenue.

The author is Eddie Dean.

Roland is engrossed in this volume in the Garden of the Dreaming; overcast skies keep the temperature pleasant; the roses are still in bloom; the nearby fountain still has roses floating on the surface of the water.

The small grey kitten has stalked up the back of Roland's chair to perch on the top and read over his shoulder.

...And the next day Lord Perth's men came back. It turned out that the bag of coins was a magic bag that belonged to the King of Dwarfs, and they'd had to give it back. Which was good--it stopped a war--but it meant they still hadn't really repaid Lord Perth. So they had to give up the chicken...

Roland shakes his head slightly, and keeps reading.

Comments

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

A dry, hot wind blows through the Garden, flapping the pages on Roland's book and pushing away the clouds. When he looks up he will see that while the Garden itself is the same, or nearly so, the distant horizons have changed.

Tall dust brown mountains range along the west; the sky is a hard and brilliant blue, with a sun like a furnace, like a blazing fire, like billions upon billions of tons of hydrogen bursting into eternal white-hot flame directly overhead.

The temperature rises, and the Garden becomes a cool green place in a world of eternal summer; still pleasant, still verdant, but an oasis now in a land of dry and strange beauty. Drifts of dust gradually blow into the square and twirl in short-lived devilry.

Horseshoes clop, not too distantly.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland looks up

(where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.)

sharply, wondering at the change -- but it is a product of his own thoughts, is it not?

The desert is always there, at the back of his mind.

And the Garden...

(Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you)

The Garden is itself, and there are still roses floating on the water. A place of peace, this...which of course explains why Roland, in his chair, has his hand on the butt of his gun.

The kitten is sitting up, now, as if it is expecting somebody.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

The horse comes closer, into the courtyard around the fountain, and the clouds come with it, yellow-grey and heavy as iron, rolling back from behind the mountains again. Slight tension, low subtle electricity in the air, comes ss well.

The horse is a bay, slat-thin and thirsty, its head bobbing with each step like a pigeon. A rifle is slid into a scabbard slung along its side. The rider is tall and shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed white hat; smoke streams out of those shadows in the wake of their slow passage.

He's draped in a dusty green poncho, ancient but well-mended.

The horse clops its way to the fountain and dips its head, guzzling greedily, and the rider swings from his mount with the ease of a lifetime spent in the saddle.

[lastgunslinger]

In his chair, Roland eases...and leans forward.

The kitten watches all of this with interest.

"Hile."

He is not smiling, and with the return of the clouds the glint on

(Joe's)

his St. Christopher's medal disappears.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

The rider stoops at the fountain and gathers water in his hands; raises it to his face. Then he stands and tilts back the hat, revealing weathered and familiar features. "Howdy. Nice chair. Looks comf'table."

[lastgunslinger]

"It is. The Dream-lord is hospitable."

The kitten jumps down from the top of the chair into Roland's lap, where it stares at the newcomer.

"Have -- you been here before?"

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Everybody dreams," Joe says reasonably. He sits on the edge of the fountain, with a low ease-taking hiss.

Meanwhile, his horse begins to eat a rose with every sign of enjoyment.

[lastgunslinger]

"Not everybody comes to the Garden." Pause. "How much do you remember?"

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Enough." He swats the horse with his hat. "Evil-minded creature. Leave offa that."

[lastgunslinger]

Roland nods.

"Moiraine brought me here."

He doesn't know what to say. How much to say.

"You all right?"

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"All right." He lays the hat beside him on the edge of the fountain. "Yourself?"

[lastgunslinger]

"Been worse."

The kitten jumps down from Roland's lap and jumps up on the edge of the fountain.

"Where'd you come in from?"

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Familiar, faded blue eyes widen at him. He gestures at the horizon. "Desert. Been on somebody's trail."

[lastgunslinger]

"Was having a perfectly nice time before you came in with your desert." There's a touch of wryness there, now. "Watched your movie, finally."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? Ain't Angel Eyes a bastard?" Joe looks out at his desert with affection. It's so... deserty. So... deadly and inhospitable.

[lastgunslinger]

"He is," Roland agrees. "But you shouldn't have let Tuco get the drop on you like that."

Roland prefers the Garden.

From somewhere -- maybe these things were always there -- there is a bottle of the Dream-lord's recommended brand of whiskey and two glasses.

Roland raises an eyebrow.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Well, Joe always knew Roland was kind of a pansy. "I still feel bad about Shorty," Joe says. Serenely, so he might be lying. He looks at the booze.

"Anything on your mind?"

[lastgunslinger]

"Always is."

Pause.

"It's all gone to shit, back there."

And he, too, looks at the booze. "You want some?"

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"All right."

"Gone to shit how?"

[lastgunslinger]

Roland pours as he talks.

"Cuthbert and Susan have reached an arrangement. Then there was you. Eddie died, then came back -- he cut a deal with the Lady Death. Price was heavy. He's not a gunslinger any more. Jake's leaving to go after the man in black in another world, but he's got to die again to do it."

His hand does not tremble.

"And then I got bitched at when I went to the Ninth Precinct of Death to try and get a little quiet. In short, everything that made that place bearable has either died or is going to die, or is pissed off with me somehow."

He hands a glass to Joe. "That's why Moiraine brought me here. So I could get out for a while."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Joe takes the whiskey. "What's the problem with Cuthbert and Susan?" He sips. It's good whiskey. Always has been.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland takes a minute to gather his thoughts.

"You were there the night she came in. You know what we were. And Cuthbert was my best friend, growing up. There's not a problem with either of them being happy. They deserve it."

A sip of whiskey.

"Seeing folken you grew up with being young and in love reminds you that you're old. Worse when you were in love with her yourself, and she burned on your account. And -- it's changed things between me and Cuthbert, for the worse."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Joe nods. "That shit happens. Women and men."

"Better for her if it wasn't one of you all at all, to my mind." He shrugs; nothing to do about it now, the gesture says.

He examines the amber liquid in his glass; assumably, he's examining the problem as well. "Problem is, people are changin' on you."

[lastgunslinger]

Roland doesn't disagree.

"You know what that place is like. If you don't have anyone..." A half-shrug. "I told Susan it was hell. Told Moiraine the same thing, when she asked. Nothing to be done but wait on the Landlord and hope I don't go crazy while I'm waiting."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Joe stares at him, bemused. "You're the one who never changes," he mutters to himself.

"People do, you know. Gen'rally speakin'. I realize most people you know just up and die eventually, instead, but this is a thing normal people have t'live with."

[lastgunslinger]

Roland snorts. "Nothing about that place is normal. Nobody else I know has to deal with their dead friends coming back to haunt them while they're trapped in the bar at the end of all things."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Other people there," Joe points out.

"Anyhow, everyone hasta deal with people changin'. Movin' apart and changin' jobs. Fallin' in love." Joe shrugs. "You see this all turnin' around you. They ain't there to haunt you. They're just livin' their lives, such as it is. You make it into hauntin' by how you take it. You're the one who makes it Hell." He shoots back the remaining whiskey.

"Speaking as someone who made the place Hell for himself for a time, I think I oughta know."

[lastgunslinger]

He looks down at his glass of whiskey, then back up, eyes narrowed slightly. "Do you say so?"

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"I just about put a bullet in my head once 'cause the place was so damn strange to me," Joe says in place of an answer.

He leans forward and steals the whiskey, pouring more for himself. "Do you know what I realized? It all went back to what Snow White tol' me--nobody thinks they're strange. Folks were just livin' their lives--weren't their fault if what they was upset my way of lookin' at things."

"An' Arithon, f'r instance--he was just as confused by what I wore and my guns as I was by wizards and their robes an' wands." He sips the whiskey and sighs in satisfaction.

"Tell you another useful peice of advice I got, from a sailin' man," he continues, unusually voluble. "The only things that matter are what a man can do an' a man can't do. I couldn't change that place, not get meself unbound any quicker. What I could do was take it as it was an' make a life there. An' for all that happened I don't think I was wrong to."

[lastgunslinger]

There's a silence while Roland mulls this over.

"No," he says finally. "You weren't."

And another one, shorter, as he drinks his whiskey.

"You're missed, you know. By many." Pause. "Meg saw it."

A good way to test out whether or not Joe knows -- if he doesn't know, Roland can just wave off the remark.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

A silence, while Joe takes a drink.

"Didn't see her there."

[lastgunslinger]

"You wouldn't have. She was todash."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Joe does not really understand that sentence, but it takes it to mean, "She was invisible' and moves on. You can't bother trying to understand the things Roland says.

"Huh." Another drink.

[lastgunslinger]

"They put you in the ground by another friend of hers. We went, after she told the news." He holds up his glass. "Had some of this. Ran into the boy and his girl."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Hm." Joe finishes the glass of whiskey and pours another one.

[lastgunslinger]

"Dream-lord had it right."

And he gives Joe a long look, eyes slightly narrowed again.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Can't beat ka, now, can you?" Joe says steadily.

"You can fight it and kick at it and make yourself miserable, or you can take it for what it is and make your peace and live your life as long as you can. Either way. The wind don't rightly care."

[lastgunslinger]

"You read the end, didn't you."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"You saw the movie," Joe says.

He makes a gesture, the whiskey glass cradled in one hand. The gesture says, do I look like the kind of fella who would cheat like that?

[lastgunslinger]

Yes.

Joe does.

"Dream-lord told me not to lose the horn, too." Roland drinks. "Two pretty powerful reasons not to, I wot."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Why'd you leave it in the first place?" Joe asks idly, still not drinking.

[lastgunslinger]

"Too busy killing and trying not to be killed to pick it up when Cuthbert fell." Pause. "I think. That would have been the reason."

It's kind of fuzzy. Joe changed the past, after all.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Killing and not being killed," Joe repeats, looking into the amber liquid. "Awful lot of that in your life."

"Not so much of that in Milliways." He finally drinks.

"Lot of things you left behind in the dust are there. Shouldn't only treasure the one of them, to my mind."

[lastgunslinger]

Another gust of hot desert wind; rose petals the color of heart's blood from a nearby trellis float down nearby. Roland watches them.

"Not accustomed to that. Any of it."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"You might have to get used to it." And Joe never read the sixth Dark Tower book, so it's surely chance that puts the next words into his mouth. "You've been offered a chance to redeem the purpose of your life."

"Don't lose the damn horn. But if you lose your friends over a romance or a change in life or hurt pride, you might as well throw it away right now."

[lastgunslinger]

Joe keeps saying things that Roland's not sure how to reply to.

So he nods, and drinks his whiskey, and maintains a comfortable silence.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

The things people say in dreams are fraught with meaning. Sometimes it fades with daylight. Either way it doesn't make for good conversation.

Joe's never been much of a conversationalist anyway. He sips his own drink, and silence reigns.

When the whiskey is gone for the third time, Joe inverts his glass and puts it over the neck of the bottle, and stands, and whistles for his horse, which has wandered off to crop along a strip of green outside the courtyard.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland looks at him. Sees him very well.

"Told you once I'd take back my curse if I could." Pause. "I cry your pardon."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

The horse trots up; it tries to eat Joe's lapel, and he swats it with his hat again. "Given," Joe says immediately, swinging up onto the horse.

"It weren't your fault, Roland. I made my choices and I dealt with 'em. I shouldn't tried to get around the prophecy to begin with. Shouldn't have been so harsh to Tuco. Should've shot the four of them inside the bar instead of squarin' off like an idiot." He shrugs.

"Sometimes things just happen." He kicks the horse, and gallops into the west, kicking up dust and dragging the desolate landscape away with him like a trailing cloak; it melts away like a horizontal fade effect in a movie. The desert wind blows once more on its tails, rifting the overcast sky and lighting up the desert Joe disappears into with gold and copper tones. Then they drift closed, back to the low slate-colored ceiling Roland began with.