to view the last of me a living frame

[popkins]

Who: Roland & Anyone Expecting Mail???
When: Early August
Where: Kauto R1,2,3,4,5
What: old Gunslinger lost and confused. I will match style!
Warnings: grumpiness and weird speech


A man who looks an uncertain amount of old is at your door. His pale blue eyes are intense, unsettling even to some, but no more so than the two revolvers in holsters against his thighs. He looks like a cliché out of an old western movie for those familiar. His wide brimmed hat is worn and faded just like the rest of him right down to his ancient looking boots. The man holds out a package for you: maybe it's that new toaster you ordered, maybe it's a returned letter, maybe it's not even yours and you can choose to argue with the armed man.

As for the courier, Roland had never had a real job, not in so much as he was now faced with. His own job had been to carry the weight of Mid-World and lay it at the feet of the Dark Tower. Now, he was supposed to carry parcels and lie them at the feet of their purchasers? Roland had been given an address and had found it, and been given letters and packages and told he was expected to deliver them. Roland had said no but the clerk asked him what else he was going to do and ...having no response, he took the parcels and moved on.

After this one satchel full he would put this job behind him but if there was ever a man duty bound it was the Gunslinger. Roland was lost in this futuristic world (actually to him it was very, very ancient but time on Mid-World was...complicated). He had been a creature of his place in the universe, in-tune with it, with the beams of the world, with all the old tales, the stories in the stars and all the sad people striving to exist in a world which had moved on.

Kauto hadn't moved on. It was overly alive, busy, like a mutated hive where all the bees are crawling all over each other and none of them remember how to make honey or where their queen is. Roland felt like one of those bees too, he thought with some dismay. He remembered white bees, mindless, bumping into one another. No honey for us tonight, he had told his friends.

"Is this you?" Roland asked, pointing to the label on the parcel.

Comments

[popkins]

Once he was inside, Roland took off his wide brimmed hat and set it aside. The old boots, long coat, and gun belts stayed in place. Pale blue eyes took in the aquarium ceiling until they focused intently on Ardyn's face.

"Roland." It was answered simply and with no offer of explanation as to whether that was a first or surname. However, he did extend the courtesies of the old world to the stranger.

"Long days and pleasant nights, Sai Lucis Caelum." At that, he nodded once. In the olden days he would have given quite the courtly bow but those were olden days indeed and worlds away from here.

[ultravires]

"Were that my nights were even longer they would surely be all the more pleasant." Ardyn responded without much thought to the appropriateness of it, however, it was a vague statement and didn't matter much to a stranger whereas it would mean something to Nyx.

Steam exhausted from the coffee machine and soon a percolating noise began. Inside the glass pot sweet drops of bitter darkness collected. "Hmm, there we are."

He turned then and drew in a breath before he looked to the box and exhaled. "Now, lets see about these things." He went to the box and turned it around on the counter as if one side of the box was more accessible than the other. He stepped to the side and retrieved a knife from the drawer before he was soon cutting through the tape. "Hah." He set the knife down and peeled back the box's folds.

"Highly recommended, this service.. and what a need for it in this place of collected races, species, and .. other-worldly inhabitants!" He pulled out the first book titled: To Be Human; Again!, the next book 10 Things Immortals Hate Being Asked and the 100 Things Immortals Hate Being Told To Do By Immortals!. Ardyn chuckled to himself at that book and pulled the next two out: Study Guide: Don't Be The Obvious Villain and Sometimes The Prince Needs Rescuing: A Man's Account of Inferiority Complex.

[popkins]

Roland took the initiative of sitting himself down and he waited for the coffee patiently, alternately looking at Ardyn and the shimmering glass overhead. The coffee was already smelling good and he found his tired old bones relaxing in the atmosphere. The sound of water, the smell of coffee, no muties or monsters or wizards...

He probably could have fallen asleep if it weren't for Ardyn making so much noise. Roland watched, those pale eyes very rarely kind in their gaze, following the movements of Ardyn's fingers. The books that came out were of immediate interest to him. On his world paper was more rare and precious than gold and a full and complete book was worth causing a war over. Roland leaned on the table and looked at each book as it was taken out.

They were brand new, he realized with something like alarm. Roland had never seen brand new books, not even when he'd been a child! Maybe he had but the impact of it now made that point moot. He didn't understand all of the words or letters on the covers but he got the hint, and he gave Ardyn a skeptical stare. They were the kinds of books he could imagine Eddie giving the man in black as a gag gift. "Are these books of jest and low wit?"

[ultravires]

"Oh.." Ardyn hadn't thought about that; in fact he took the titles and synopsis quite seriously! "I should hope not.." He frowned and looked to the books again. "Huh." He then smiled. "Well, if so.. they'll be great coffee table books.. mm?" He turned to the counter that held the coffee and drew in a breath. "How do you take your coffee, Roland." He was getting out the sugar and milk for himself.

Of course, now he was worried he'd boughten a gag-gift and if that was so it was so, but he was really trying here. Especially since he was literally fucking the hero. He couldn't be the obvious bad guy anymore and hell, if others came here before him that knew what it was like to readjust their whole life then who was he to shun their intellect on the matter?! Gods, he needed a villain anonymous group.

[popkins]

He had little humor himself, nearly nonexistent, and he sometimes had very little patience with people who did. Luckily for him two people in two separate ka-tet were jokesters. Cuthbert and Eddie had forced him to learn some patience. Roland had little interest in the books if they were witless jokes.

Ardyn did not seem as if he were joking about it and that made Roland relax slightly. If he didn't buy these for humor why these books then? Roland slid the nearest one towards him, the first one, although he didn't open it.

"Are you not human, Sai?"

[ultravires]

"Hm." He wondered that sometimes too. Either you were human or not human, there wasn't a grey area, not really. Was there? "I was.. but I do not think I am any longer.. I had hoped those books would help me." He explained. "To figure out what exactly I am.. though I look like a human, a man, I possess so much more than the defined man does. At least as we defined man to be in my world. Humanity .. I once lived to protect humanity and yet I became less human the more I saved.. I died once.. long ago.. now, now I am unsure." He tried his best to explain it.

The next time he spoke was after he delivered both of them a cup of coffee and he too seated himself down. "Uncomplicated answer, no.. I am not human. Complicated answer: Yes, I am human.. least I feel I want to be.. more human than I was previously."

[popkins]

Ardyn didn't seem threatening but his words caused Roland no comfort. The Gunslinger stared hard, waiting for his gut to tell him to either shoot or get the hell out of there. His gut was quiet, and his tongue was thirsty for coffee, and so he stayed. "Black," he answered finally as to how he took his coffee and he took it just the way.

He could see himself easily becoming addicted to the amount of sugar available here, and so he tried to pace himself of when and how he consumed it. Roland murmured a, "Good health," to his host before he sipped the coffee. It was very good.

It had been what... years? Since he'd last had really good coffee and this was about the best he'd ever had. Roland relaxed further and took another sip before he spoke up. "Is that what you would have palaver with me about, your humanity?"

[ultravires]

A man after Ardyn’s own heart! “I’m between who better to tell my secrets to than a stranger and the curious danger you possess at the helm of your belt.” He took a sip of his own dark drink before he sat it down on the table and stared at it as if it were going to tell him what they should converse about. “Cats, we could talk about cats, Roland. Perhaps between the two of us we can figure out the old saying of: there’s more than one way to skin a cat.” He lightly chuckled. Oh, if Nyx could hear him now.

“Or we could discuss what it is you have on your mind. Other than my questionable humanity..” He couldn’t help the snort that came from his lips for that as well. Gods, what was his life.

[popkins]

And the curious danger you possess at the helm of your belt? Roland only a vague clue as to what that meant. Either Ardyn was talking about his guns or his prick. And, so far as he didn't know Ardyn at all, either was genuinely possible. Roland stared curiously for a second while the man spoke of cats and then what could be on Roland's mind.

Saying either his guns or his prick wasn't going to do. Roland gave a slight shrug. "Mm." That was all he offered for as long as it took him to take two more leisurely sips of his coffee, each sip rested on his tongue in a scalding delight before he would swallow it.

Finally he said: "if you hate cats why have one stalking your home?"

[ultravires]

And here is where he shares something utterly special and private with the other, although it could easily be taken as another sarcastic remark. “It thrills me more each day to have something so close I hate near me.” As in it keeps him going, it feeds his anger, insecurity, inferiority, whatever— it pushes him to toe the line and he rather likes the intensity of the incongruence. “Without chaos … I am stuck in my own head, after all.. and as you can tell, I don’t quite know who I am.” Or, “What I am.” He licks his lips and he draws the coffee up to his lips to sip at and he wonders about Nyx after his comment. Madness, no doubt founded their circumstance but love and or hate could also be a strong factor and Ardyn was very much sure he was not alone in this––

after all, Nyx was quite the pissy little kitten when they first came together here.

[popkins]

Roland could relate to being stuck in his own head in the least of that which Ardyn spoke of. For as little imagination as he had, Roland had the ability to overthink nearly everything if given enough time. He had always been better at making split decisions which nearly always turned out for the better. He sipped his coffee and closed his eyes a brief moment as he appreciated the hot, bitter brew.

"You keep the cat to... challenge yourself? Do I understand your words well, sai?" Roland opened his eyes to look at the man curiously. As a Gunslinger he could understand challenging oneself but as an individual it seemed a piss poor reason to keep a cat around.

[ultravires]

“A challenge indeed.. to be kind, to be giving, forgiving, offering, and attentive … toward another I may have once before nothing for, nothing of.” He drew in a breath and exhaled. This was a good metaphor. He was pleased he thought of it, ah, and that didn’t much change. His self-praise and glorifying personality which may very well be a symptom of his deep rooted hurt of inferiority, he knew enough about the human tendencies that he was not at a complete loss to his own feelings. He had tremendous insight and poor boundaries and judgment.

Meow.

As if the goddamned cat knew it wasn’t about them really, the feline called for attention. Ardyn grinned over to Roland. “What do you do, to make yourself a better person?”

[popkins]

The coffee in his mug was already halfway gone. Excess leads to gluttony, Roland thought, wondering if that was from the bible or just tooth-pick thin old nags. He mused on that as he took two more sips of the dark brew. Under the table, he stretched his long legs out and crossed his boots at his ankles. The hand not holding the mug was hooked in one of his gun belts.

A better person?

Now that was a question. Roland used to be a good person, he was fairly sure of that. His quest to find the Dark Tower over and over again pulled goodness from him until he couldn't be sure he was even an agent of the White any longer. An agent of the gray, he thought with distaste towards himself. Inevitably, he thought of Jake. Roland sighed.

"Remember the face of my father in all that I do, and respect what fate my ka pulls me towards." Roland frowned after saying this. "Even then, I fail myself and my ka-tet over and over again. Part of being human is, for better or worse, being no perfect creature."

[ultravires]

Even if he had no clue as to half the things Roland said, what the words meant: ka, katet, it didn’t matter. What mattered was Roland knew what it was he did to keep himself a good person. That was what was important. Ardyn knew he really liked being around Nyx, if not for his cat, but perhaps there was some agitation because of the guilt he still felt in himself. Humanity was tainted with guilt, if they were worthwhile people–– for so long Ardyn was guiltless.

Now, however, now it was different. He felt that guilt and he felt how his actions had caused such pain to others. To Nyx. How could he do right by Nyx in this relationship, in his place?

Ardyn lowered his eyes to his coffee and sipped at it before he sat the cup down again. “There is no such thing as perfection.. outside of darkness, it does not discriminate, it consumes all and is an endless hunger.. I thought once I could harness that darkness inside me .. to protect humanity.. and that is how I died. By those humans I saved by swallowing their daemons I had become tainted and spoiled.. no light would have me.. only the darkness and into the darkness I fell..”

[popkins]

The more Ardyn talked the more he sounded like Walter. Roland didn't know if Walter saw himself as some sort of martyr as this man seemed to, or if Walter had any interest at all in saving humanity. Rather, Roland thought Walter wished to destroy humanity. "You-" what came after that he didn't know.

Roland moved the arm of his free hand up to loop over the back of the kitchen chair instead, making his shoulders hunched, and he looked far older than he possibly was in that position. Despite himself, he couldn't help a yawn that overcame his face momentarily. Gods was he tired, down to the core him, he was so damned tired since coming to Thisavrou.

"Darkness is not perfection either. Evil, torment, cruelty are all darkness and they are far from perfection. It is true that it consumes all with its endless hunger but I disagree that it doesn't discriminate. Evil uses those it can, whether they seek it our or not. That is what I have seen."

[ultravires]

Ardyn didn’t mind the disagreement on their views. He didn’t find reason or need to convince this stranger of his view; which was strange on that front but a welcomed peace of discussion he did not mind being at ends about. Ardyn gave a small nod and he reached for his cup of coffee for another sip. Curious discussion, none the less.

“We then know, the light the darkness has squandered .. in our respective experiences. Be it ourselves or others.” He leaned then toward the table and folded his arms over the table and eyed the cat that was now grooming itself in the hall toward the living room. He drew in a breath and looked down to his cup for another sigh. “Well, .. here we get to define ourselves over again and understand what evil and darkness means here… even learn the sight for it, the feel for it.”

[popkins]

Roland closed his eyes for a moment, then looked over towards the cat after Ardyn did. While the man spoke, he watched the cat, noting that it was very healthy and had a nice shine to its coat, was well fed, and not mutated. It had been a long time since he'd seen a non-mutie cat. It was a handsome cat, so far as they went. Again he had to wonder why own a pet you hate? But he didn't think Ardyn was apt to give any more clear of an answer. He spoke in riddles too, just like Walter.

He took a gulp of coffee this time, as it had cooled enough to do so. Roland looked up to Ardyn and he thought a moment and then nodded in agreement. "I do not know if my ka even has a beam to follow on these worlds. I... would think so. Yet, I feel nothing. I have no sense of purpose." Which sounded more depressing than it maybe actually was. Or maybe, it was exactly that depressing.

Roland finished off his coffee suddenly and he sat up straighter while unfolding his legs. "Thankee, sai, for the coffee. I would continue our palaver if you would pour me another cup?"

[ultravires]

Ardyn obliged Roland with another cup of coffee, his own mug got a refill as well. After he set the pot back away he returned to the table and brought up a question: “No sense of purpose.. yet this world surely brought us here for something, right? I have been here some long months by now and I still am unsure of the purpose of myself here.” He hadn’t the answer the man was looking for, if he was looking at all. Yet, even if he did have an answer for the other it may not be the answer the other needed. “I have been quite lax here, I realize, enjoying my .. new found, misfit, mortality.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I found myself needing to do things to satisfy the most basic of human needs: eat, sleep, and so on and so forth.. that was quite the adjustment.” He wouldn’t dare go into the gross details of his human biological functions but Roland got the idea, he was sure the man was bright enough.

Thus far, of course, the most rewarding thing he’s found again was the carnal activity of the flesh and release of pleasure. Yes, he was quite fond of that.

“Do you have anyone here from your world?”

[popkins]

"No," he said and immediately thought thankfully but then he immediately retracted that thought. Roland thought he would give almost anything to see any of his old friends. Eddie, Susannah, Cuthbert, Alain, Jake of course, even Oy... and Susan. Dear, sweet Susan. Roland closed his eyes slowly and opened them again even more slowly, his gaze unfocused on the table rather than across to Ardyn.

"How old are you, sai? You speak of mortality and immortality as if you were a sorcerer. I have known such in my time, more the ill for me, for as you say yourself the darkness found its use in them." Roland looked up then to Ardyn, his eyes intense as if they were burning. "I hope for everyone's sake your purpose here comes to be serving something other than the darkness. It sounds as if it might be."

[ultravires]

Ardyn nodded softly to Roland’s words. “Darkness can use us all..” In one way or another, Ardyn thought. “I’m over two-thousand years old.. if your year is the same as mine in days.” He swallowed and looked down to his coffee. “I used to think the path away from darkness is the path not taken to serve yourself, but others.” He glanced to Roland and shook his head before he stared behind the other at the panel window. “Yet, serving others still did not protect me from that darkness. Even with the years I have, the answer to that still eludes me. I do not have any recipe, composition, map, or formula to avoid the evil that can encompass me.” He then looked to the other.

“Perhaps that is why I find myself at ease to talk to you, Roland. You’re a hero, aren’t you?” He nodded toward the man’s belt. “Those silver-guns are your weapon against the daemons lurking within those who hold shadows to their hearts.”

that icon *swoon*

[popkins]

A hero seemed a far stretch for what he was. Roland was not Arthur of Eld, some romantic and intangible hero from a past time who was larger than life and incorruptible. "I would not call myself that," he finally said in a distant voice. Roland's eyes never left his host, although he did pick up the fresh cup of coffee for a sip, still staring at him over the rim.

"Too often these guns have made waste of people otherwise good, people corrupted, and the shadows put to their hearts by means not their own. That does not sound like a hero, not to me."

Roland motioned towards the books with his cup. "You call yourself a villain?"

c8

[ultravires]

“Ah, just the same.. I would not call myself that either. Yet, like any good story one must push the hero to his true potential, no?” He grinned. His forefinger gently stroked the side of his porcelain coffee cup. It wasn’t just a plain white, but it had specs of gold and silver on it with rose-shades and pink highlights that gave it a floral design. It was one of his favorite purchases from Antiquities, a darling shop in Region One. Ardyn had various items from it. “For the greater good, sacrifices are needed. And, as I’ve told you before, I have sacrificed extensively for my world.”

[popkins]

Roland was quiet for so long likely Ardyn thought he might not even speak again. When he did finally speak, it wasn't with what he wanted to say. "There was a man," he began but immediately looked troubled. Half the words in the short sentence were questionable and troublesome and distasteful.

"There is a sorcerer, named Walter by some. Most know him only as The Man in Black in my world. If I was the hero of my story then he was the villain and you remind me of him in many ways."

Roland went quiet again, though this time only for a few spans of breath and another sip of coffee. "That is no compliment, I speak straight. You make me wonder if he too at some point served what he thought was a greater good."

[ultravires]

Ardyn listened carefully to Roland, he knew from the first indication that this was a story worth gold to the other; he could tell by the way Roland’s expression seemed to darken. Ardyn’s eyes were even slightly wider as if to truly take in what Roland was saying, perhaps even feeling. There was an intensity in the air between them and Ardyn soon realized why: Ardyn was odius to the poor delivery man. “If he did, or did not.. you made a judgment that he was no longer serving the greater good..” He inferred. “Else you would have left him well enough alone.”

[popkins]

"I could not, for my father's sake," Roland replied. His tone was quiet but harsh. The Gunslinger stared hard at Ardyn with his jaw clenching and unclenching several times before he spoke again. "Walter would not only destroy my world, but all worlds. He would see himself as the master of all existence, all planes of existence."

He realized his anger was misplaced here and he forced himself to even out his tone, and he took another gulp of his coffee. "I am not proud of all the sacrifices I made in my search for him and the nexus of power he wanted. I think, that is what part of me remains true to my creed. I have shame. I have regret." Oh did he have regret.