(no subject)
Jul. 7th, 2005 03:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lastgunslingerFor the last few days Roland has been feeling...antsy. This is why he decides to explore. Sitting in his room, listening to music -- that wasn't doing it. It got even worse when he recalled that maybe he did know a song from the Johnny Cash album -- American IV.
"The Man Comes Around" is a hymn of the Manni.
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter's ground
When the Man comes around
He's got it running through his head as he walks the bounds -- spending the morning outside, stopping in the bar for a brief lunch (and not looking at the front door), and then finally exploring the hallways he's never had reason to go down.
The song doesn't leave his head.
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling, voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
A staircase now. He mounts it, step by careful step.
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
The song echoes in his ears.
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
Echoes -- and as Roland reaches the top, and opens the door there to see what looks like a duel arena, he doesn't hear --
When the Man comes around --
-- the footsteps close behind his that are now audible.
"The Man Comes Around" is a hymn of the Manni.
The hairs on your arm will stand up
At the terror in each sip and in each sup
Will you partake of that last offered cup
Or disappear into the potter's ground
When the Man comes around
He's got it running through his head as he walks the bounds -- spending the morning outside, stopping in the bar for a brief lunch (and not looking at the front door), and then finally exploring the hallways he's never had reason to go down.
The song doesn't leave his head.
Hear the trumpets, hear the pipers
One hundred million angels singing
Multitudes are marching to the big kettledrum
Voices calling, voices crying
Some are born and some are dying
It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come
A staircase now. He mounts it, step by careful step.
Whoever is unjust let him be unjust still
Whoever is righteous let him be righteous still
The song echoes in his ears.
Whoever is filthy let him be filthy still
Listen to the words long written down
Echoes -- and as Roland reaches the top, and opens the door there to see what looks like a duel arena, he doesn't hear --
When the Man comes around --
-- the footsteps close behind his that are now audible.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:43 am (UTC)Quiet enough that even a gunslinger can't hear her.
(Maybe I come down the chimney, Kaylee. Bring presents to the good girls and boys.)
Kaylee stands behind Roland.
(Maybe not, though. Maybe I've always been here.)
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:44 am (UTC)His voice is questioning.
And yet --
-- when Kaylee approached him out by the lake, she made noise.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:49 am (UTC)(I'm gonna give you a present. Get rid of a problem you've got.)
"How's it goin'?"
(There's nobody can help you.)
Somewhere a light snaps on, illuminating the dark at the top of the stairs.
(Say it.)
The black rose on her shirt is clearly visible.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 01:55 am (UTC)-- white-hot this pain, worse than anything, anything, he's ever felt before, flash of fire and oh god the weight in his chest, like a length of steel suddenly going from nothing to existence, red and angry before the forge --
What have I become, my sweetest friend?
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 02:01 am (UTC)(That's her beating heart, isn't it?)
Kaylee draws out the sword from Roland's chest, taking it slow, making it last.
(Pull off any one of a thousand parts, she'll just die. Such a slender thread.)
He won't stop screaming.
(You ever been raped?)
Kaylee frowns.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 02:20 am (UTC)And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts;
And I looked and behold, a pale horse
Is this how it is to end, his quest for the Tower? On the steps unexplored, the path unknown? Bar-pent and exiled from his true purpose for so long -- and then unBound -- and now this?
And his name that sat on him was Death
And Hell followed with him.
He waits for her -- Her -- and listens, and hopes for the sound of her wings -- for relief from the pain.
Take me out to the black
Relief comes, as he tumbles to the floor, vision gone, consciousness following soon after.
Tell 'em I ain't comin' back
The last thing he sees is Kaylee's face, a weird flat light in her eyes -- Kaylee, and that black rose.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-07 02:27 am (UTC)(stick I took Cort's stick I'm a man)
sword in hand.
A small, satisfied smile.
The light that showed Roland Kaylee's black rose flickers a little.
Click.
Footsteps walk away from the gunslinger's body, fading...and disappearing.