The Duelist

It spreads unseen, a pathogen undermining the apparently-static overlay of form that covers the nature of things. It replicates, propagates itself through unseen and undetectable vectors. It changes the host, transforms them into unique expressions of itself, myriad versions of the same thing.

We are all the same fucker. All of us are the same thing.

All we need to do is wake up and realize it.

Sometimes I forget that things weren’t always winter.

It understandable, I suppose; the evidence of the way things were are hidden away, the way old photographs and letters make their way to the back of our drawers. It’s easy to judge the present solely by things that are evident only in the present.

Season change. That is the nature of seasons, to pass from one to another in an unending, unrelenting progression.

I remember what you were like at the beginning of autumn. You were beautiful, more beautiful because your beauty was fragile, and because I understood that fragility. I wanted to shelter you from the coming winter, if you would let me.

But you pretended as if the creep of the cold across your lands was insignificant, basing your judgment solely on how imperceptible its advance was.

I can wait. That’s the part that confuses people, you see - my ability to lie in wait, seemingly motionless, for so long that it appears I have frozen in place.

Frozen. Curious choice of words.

Even winter passes. Until it does, I will lie here, coiled, waiting.

Sometimes you really are just warming the seat for the guy who’s really in charge. Sometimes no one can do the job of running the show but you. Sometimes all you can really do is hold the fort and hope the real king comes home soon and takes the responsibility off your hands.

Things happen in threes, you know. King, Wizard, and Minstrel.

Every nation has the myth of a sleeping king, come to return when his kingdom is in greatest peril. And when the king sleeps, so does the wizard, and the minstrel.

I am a magician.

I am not your fucking personal assistant.

That is all.