milliways_bar | (no subject)

For a long minute, Atreyu considers this, going silent and bowing his head slightly. Then he chuckles, glancing up at Asar-Suti. "Well. I do not always accede to your superiority, even now," he says with half a grin. "I am stubborn, in that way."

He rests a hand against the arm of Asar-Suti's chair. "I have never allowed him to control me," he shrugs. "Even when we were both in only our tenth years."

Asar-Suti makes a face, half-smiling. "I don't claim any superiority, you know" he says, slowly. "I can just be a bit overbearing, I fear. We are equals, and I know that. I like that, about this place. We are all equals, and the high-and-mighty will end up in the cells if they don't behave."

He nods again. "And so Bastian and you are equals here, as well. What is the main difference between your world and the human world, apart from the part where you think they made you up?"

"There are so many," Atreyu replies, mentally stumbling for a moment over the breadth of the question. "And I do not think they did, I know they did," he corrects, perhaps a little impatiently. "I was told so more times than I can remember to count, during the quest."

He falls silent again, for a longer stretch this time. "I suppose that...wishes can come true, in Fantasia, just for wishing them. But in Bastian's world, wishes do not always come true, no matter how hard you wish."

"It was very cruel of whoever invented Bastian to make your world so subservient to his," Asar-Suti says. "But then, I have a bone to pick with whoever invented my world, as well, over - three or five issues, most of them having to do with my Ihlini. I suppose it has to be like that, for the sake of the story."

He looks at Atreyu. "But not all wishes come true on your world. It is that" - he points at the Auryn, very careful not to touch it - "that caused the magic, isn't it?"

Catching Auryn by its chain, Atreyu lifts it between them, the two snakes catching the light, creating a momentary illusion of movement. "Yes," he murmurs. "For Bastian, it did. But it has a price, too." Not just for wishes, but still he wears it of his own free will. In another moment, he lets it fall back against his chest. "But distance, in Fantasia, is like a wish. It must be a true wish of the heart, or it does not deserve to come true."

"That carries the magic of your world, but only for somebody not from your world?" Asar-Suti asks, curious.

"Then Bastian was't the only person from Earth to go there? And what is the price?"

Asar-Suti is now simply curious, trying to understand the magic of yet another world. He no longer worries that Bastian might turn up and unduly subjugate Atreyu to his ideas.

"It is the power of the Childlike Empress," Atreyu murmurs. "It...was not the same, for Bastian to wear it, as it was for me to wear it. I did as I wanted, and did what I meant to do. Bastian paid one memory of the human world, for every wish. He forgot who he was, wish by wish."

He shakes his head, eyes going stark for just a moment. He had seen the City of Old Emperors, once. "He was not the only one, no. Most humans forget entirely, and are unable to return to their world."

"Then your world has a light side and a dark, just as the Auryn has a light snake and a dark," Asar-Suti says, comprehension dawning.

"Forgetting old reality for every new wish - it makes sense. It is fair. You who were born there can't wish but don't forget, either. It is a lovely and dangerous place."

Atreyu's eyes brighten, suddenly dazzling despite their darkness, and he gives Asar-Suti a slowly curving smile, silent joy. The description is like a true name, and it makes Fantasia real again, even in his memory.

"Yes," he whispers. "That is exactly what it is."

"And that is your home, the world you want to take Cynric to see, and he will be safe from the wishing and forgetting, because he's not a storyteller, he's a story," Asar-Suti says, cryptically.

"Can I tell you a secret that you must guard even from Cynric and from Bastian?"

Atreyu blinks, tilting his head at Asar-Suti, eyes going just a little wary as he leans his elbows against his knees.

"If you think it safe to do so."

"It is," Asar-Suti says. "Ray has seen the books about my world, about the Cheysuli and Ihlini, Cynric and me and all the others, in his world. He reckons that everybody is real, and the stories just echo through the inbetween places of the multiverse. But yes, like Bastian read about you, so >Ray could read about me or Cynric if he wanted to, and that makes us your kind, and safe in Fantasia. Cynric could probably not wish and forget, like Bastian did, if he wanted to."

For a long minute, Atreyu considers this idea, then nods, once. "I had not thought of it," he admits, a bit sheepish. But Cynric is not human, any more than am I, or so I understood." Not as Bastian was human, in any case.

"I wouldn't let such a thing happen twice. Not to a friend," Atreyu whispers of forgetting. That had been a terrible time.

"I know you wouldn't," Asar-Suti says, serious. "And I'm telling you that it won't happen to Cynric. But please, do not tell him about that book. I've spent more than six months contemplating the possibility that there is fiction about me in some other world; Cynric would probably be shocked."

Atreyu nods, solemn. "I will never mention it." In a way, knowing that other somewhat similar worlds exist is enough--a comfort and a discomfort all at once.

For a moment, he curls one hand around Auryn, because it shares that feeling. It owns and does not own him; it owns him only by his own willingness. A strange feeling, like being forever torn in two.

Like the two parts of the Auryn, a dark snake, and a light one.

"I am glad you are here," Asar-Suti says, out of the blue, not very specific - he can be like that.

"I am glad you are here," Atreyu returns, leaning a bit more heavily for a moment against the arm of Asar-Suti's chair. His understanding is instinctive, his appreciation of truth very pure, and he would never say such a thing without fully meaning it.

Asar-Suti nods, quietly.

"He is my child, a bit, and your dear close friend; together, we might manage to keep him safe and happy," he says, another wide jump - but he knows that Atreyu can follow.

"The luckdragon is lovely; I always feel like asking me to take me flying," he adds after a while, just as out of context.

"He wouldn't mind," Atreyu smiles, speaking of Falkor, rather than Cynric. "He flys every moment he can."

He isn't altogether so certain that Cynric will welcome intrusions, especially at the moment, and approaching him now will require quite a casting off of his own careful diplomacy. He hates to push for almost anything.

Asar-Suti smiles; he's not going to push Atreyu about Cynric, either. He just cares deeply for both of them, and wants to see them happy again.

How radiant they had been, shortly after Gil's birthday...

"I spoke to him for quite a while, the other day," he says, talking of Falkor as well. "He is wise as a lir, but much more independent; anybody can speak to him, even those with no magic at all. He is marvellous. Seeing him, and talking to him, makes people feel better."

"He's a luckdragon," Atreyu says with a shrug and a little smile, as if that explains it all. "I wouldn't want him to be like a lir, I don't think," he confesses, despite his previous envy of Cynric and Lorrin. Likely enough, he just missed Falkor badly enough to wish for that sort of connection. "He is so eager to meet all sorts of creatures, and such magic would be a burden upon him."

"Yes; he has some measure of luck to spare for everybody. Still, he should be on your lir bands; it is only fitting. You are the one he connects to most closely. His 'little friend and master', he calls you, taking a certain amount of joy in the 'little' part."

Asar-Suti smiles back at Atreyu.

"Everyone is little, to someone so large," Atreyu replies, chuckling. "Though I was once much smaller, so perhaps he remembers that better."

Strange to see the very physical evidence of ten years in himself.

He touches both hands to the bands around his upper arms, fingertips sliding smooth over the metal. "They will be beautiful," he murmurs.

"They already are, as any Cheysuli work; they will be more so," Asar-Suti agrees.

"You were ony ten when you went on your great quest - that's when you met the luckdragon?"

Nodding, Atreyu draws up both legs, crossing them beneath himself in his customary pose. "Yes. We were bound together, then, and became friends. I had thought we both would die--we had been stung by Ygramul the Many. But the Gnomics cured us of the poison."