In Which Farilon Is Thrown the Word

March 3, 1180

Farilon had a guest, or so his mother said, but she hadn't told him who it was and he wasn't happy about that. He trusted his mother--who else did he trust, besides the little nieces and nephews and baby sister who were young enough to look at him and see something other than 'different'?--and he knew the guests didn't want to hurt him, but they did. There were guests like Rona's friends who tried to be nice but just gawked at him like some animal in a menagerie. There were guests like Lord Severin and Lady Arydath who were also nice on the surface, but were more like doctors than anything else, more concerned with how Farilon worked than how Farilon felt.

And then there were his siblings, and while his mother promised that they loved him, they had funny ways of showing it: Lorn's frequent sizing glances, Xeta and Abrich's stiff smiles, Rona's reluctance to look at him at all. If it was one of his siblings--or any of their spouses, though he didn't think any of them would have come to see him on their own--he hoped that at least Neva or Yvanette or Wolf had been brought along.

But he didn't see any of his siblings, nor any of his nieces or nephews--just the palest man he'd ever seen, seated on the couch next to his father. Farilon shivered, for all his body wouldn't follow. The man was oddly familiar, but such unusual coloring should have been much easier to place.

"Farilon, this is Lucien." His mother nodded toward the pale man, who looked over with a mandatory grin. The name came no more easily than the form. "He's married to Lord Severin's daughter Vera. Do you remember her?"

He nodded, even though it was odd to think that Vera was married when she was only a few years older than he was. Then again, he should have been used to it by now. Everyone was married. Vera probably had babies too, just like everyone else he'd known as a child.

"Hello, Farilon." The pale man sounded nice enough, but that didn't mean much. They all did, at first. "Do you remember me?" Farilon shook his head. The screeching of his own makeshift neck echoed throughout his hollow head and grated whatever mechanism or sheer act of God allowed him to hear. "That's all right. I don't remember you too well either, to be honest--just a bunch of clanking when Remiel was hauling you about. I used to be his... I don't know. His ward, I guess."

Oh. He was that blind boy Farilon had caught a few glimpses of back in the dungeon days. Only he wasn't blind anymore, nor was he much of a boy. He'd changed. Farilon hadn't.

His mother ushered him to the other couch, then sat down beside him. She was a saint, his mother. She was so polite with all of her guests, no matter what she may have secretly thought of them--if she was capable of an ill thought at all. Maybe it was lucky for him that he had no voice or face. She might have been disappointed if she'd known just how bitter he'd grown, and he didn't want to disappoint the only person capable of seeing him as more than some enchanted object.

"It's certainly a pleasant surprise to see you, Lucien. I hope all is well with you?"

"Well enough, I guess. My son's picked up some interesting words from his Uncle Roddie, though." Lucien shrugged sheepishly. "Vera's not so happy about that. But nothing too remarkable, really."

Farilon's father chuckled. "Should've brought him along to play with the girls. Eldona pitches a fit every time someone says a naughty word."

"I'll bring him around some time, then." But if he agreed, then why the strained grimace? He looked almost apologetic, as if he didn't really plan to bring his son. Farilon wished he would. Small children and their simple ways were about all he could handle. Everything was beneath the surface for adults. "But, uh... I actually don't have time to visit long today. Sorry, I know that's rude of me. But it's the first window of time I've had in a while and I had to see Farilon."

So he was just another observer. At least he was honest about it--not that that didn't leave its own kind of hurt. Farilon's mother frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It's... complicated." It was a word people threw around a lot, more than Farilon remembered. Sometimes he wondered if they really knew what it meant. "I didn't mean to offend, really, or to imply that I just wanted to study you or something. I just..."

Lucien sighed. It was another thing people seemed to do, just for lack of anything better. "I don't know. I think after all Remiel did to me, after all he could do because of me... I guess I just had to see that something good managed to come out of it."

It seemed to satisfy his mother--warm her, even. But Farilon didn't know if he was good. He didn't know if he was anything.

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