ch.18: goldenrod, for good fortune

                                    

                                          
It's all too easy to fall into a routine when you have no one to rely on but yourselves. Weeks fall away as you drift aimlessly into a sullen understanding. Phil and Techno go away on their trips, the ones that you aren't supposed to ask about. They argue, late at night, when you're supposed to be asleep. Time passes, and the march of time expands ever onward.
You spend your nights working on Wilbur's cloak, wrestling with silken thread and the bone needles that Phil brings you from god knows where. You spend your days training with Tommy and Techno. The kid is better with swords and axes than you now, but even Techno lags behind your pure prowess when it comes to archery. You weren't bad with a shield either, a downright danger in a 1v1. 
                          
Wilbur continues to work through his journals. He shows you pages sometimes, a margin sketch here, a funny anecdote there. He shows you fewer pages after the first mention of revolution. He makes his way through the volumes like a machine, brow furrowed as he sits at his desk, reading his life play out on a page. In his own handwriting, no less. He laughs less and less. 
                          
There's a knock on your door, just after you climb into bed after returning from a hunting trip late at night. The spring winds were favorable this year, driving a lot of game into the area, and you and Techno were stocking up while you could. Your legs protested as you shuffled to the door, opening it just a crack. When you saw that it was Wilbur you opened it fully, rubbing the burgeoning sleep from your eyes. He pushes past you into your room, pacing nervously back and forth as you shut the door behind him.
                          
"Wilbur? Are you alright?" It was well into the night, but he was still in his day clothes, hard-soled boots thunking against the floor as he held one of his green journals in his hands. He stops at the sound of your voice, as you reach out and put a hand on his arm. "What happened?" 
                          
"It's in this one," he declares ominously, tapping the hard cover. 
                          
"What-"
                          
"IT. The thing that killed me." He holds the book tightly shut, as if it will open by itself and show him all the horrors he does not wish to face. "The reason why I..." He trails off, a shiver going down his spine as he tries to shake off his fear. 
                          
"Here, sit down before you pass out," you instruct, steering him to sit at the edge of your bed. You tear the journal from his grasp, putting it on the mantle of your fireplace. His leg bounces nervously as he tries to calm down, tries to get himself under control. "Wilbur, look at me," you say, in a voice so soft that it almost surprises you as you put a hand on his shaking knee. "It's okay."
                          
"It's not okay," he whispers, shaking his head vehemently. He reaches for the journal and you bat his hand away. 
                          
"Talk to me. What's got you worried like this? You're shivering like you're freezing!" He scoffs, as if you've just asked him what color the sky is. 
                          
"What's worrying me is that I'm the same person that wrote those entries," he gestures angrily at the book. "That...that traitor is inside of me somewhere." He looks up at you like a fox with its foot in a trap, ready to gnaw it off just for the chance to bleed out free. "And to read how it all ended? To see the last entry before he...before I leveled L'manburg? Sal, I don't think I have it in me. I think it would drive me well and truly mad." 
                          
"You don't have to read it," you soothe, reaching out and pushing his disheveled hair from his eyes softly, so very softly. He reaches up and puts his hand over yours, pressing it to his cheek as if you, sinner that you are, can grant him any benediction for the sins he's forgotten. As if your simple presence will heal the wounds he keeps buried deep down, as if the light of you can eradicate the darkness that festers somewhere deep within his heart. "Is it so bad to forget?"
                          
"I can't," he whispers, looking up at you, practically pleading with you to give him the answer. That haunting voice claws at the back of your mind, that chorus line of your past selves whispering to you over and over and over. ' Sweet Helen, make me immortal'.