(no subject)

[lastgunslinger]

Moiraine is keeping vigil, and Roland has gone to bed.

He puts his new coffee mug on his dresser with the other three. He likes this Tet Corporation mug, with its rose, more than the rest of them. A lot more.

And now, now when he's alone, he collapses on the edge of the bed and rubs his temples.

It's been a long day.

Comments

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

It's not over yet.

Joe stares at the 99 on Roland's door for a moment, then pounds on the door.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland's up off the bed.

He opens the door with his right hand, keeping his left hand free to pull. Just in case.

But it's Joe.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Sai Susan Delgado of Mejis is in the bar and would like the assistance of a gunslinger of Gilead." His face is pale and his voice is flat. "She's dead, she says."

He doesn't know what it means; only that Mejis and Delgado set the gunslinger off every time. He's not sure Roland isn't going to shoot him.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland is paler by far.

It's a good thing the door is there for Roland to grab, because otherwise he just would have fallen to the floor.

The look he gives Joe is something along the lines of 'hasn't there been enough already?' It's miserable any way you look at it. This much is certain.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"She came straight to me. Said I looked like someone from her home." There's no doubt Joe looks the part of a Mejis vaquero tonight; the hat and serape are perfect.

He looks dreadfully sorry to bring this down on the gunslinger. "Who was she, Roland? And how far back is she comin' from?"

[lastgunslinger]

"Aye. Thee does." Roland is still pale, and he feels like he might faint.

"She was...mine. And I was hers. Just after I'd earned my guns." Joe's going to have to strain to hear this next part. "She burned."

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Christ, Roland." He places a hand on the other man's arm to steady him, which he could not do when Walter came. That was man's work, and men's business.

But when Roland earned his guns. At 14. You had the right to expect that the dead stay dead and not come for you--how long? thirty or a thousand--years later. It was more than you could expect anyone to bear.

[lastgunslinger]

Roland'll bear it. He doesn't have any other choice.

"She's young?" No reason to hope otherwise -- to hope that somehow, somewhere, she got the chance to grow old -- but he can't help it.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"No more'n 16, Roland." And beautiful. He swallows.

[lastgunslinger]

"As she was when she died." And I am old.

Roland closes his eyes tightly.

"I have to go down. Is it not so?" He knows it's so. He knows. He knows.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"The dead are Bound. You can't avoid her. And she talks like you." And her face glows when you mention gunslingers. "If you don't go to her, she'll hear of you anyway."

[lastgunslinger]

"I know."

Roland steps out past Joe and closes the door to Room 99.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

"Alone, Roland? Or should I come?"

[lastgunslinger]

There's a phrase that Roland was told as a small child: all small boys born to the High Speech must face the dark alone.

"Alone."

He looks it.

[joewithnoname.livejournal.com]

Joe sets a hand on the man's shoulder again, and gives it a rough squeeze.

And returns to Jake's room. To do what he can.

[lastgunslinger]

And Roland turns and goes to the bar. To do what he must.