A/N: This chapter features a scene which is a particular favourite of mine from the book. That's why it's one of the longer chapters I've posted thus far. I'm interested to see whether anyone else feels the same way about this. It actually took all my self control not to post the whole book at once to reach this point. So glad we've finally made it!

Chapter 14: In Which Rat Visits Loneliness

It was a given. I was not going to stay at the palace.

Just the idea of staying there was an abomination. The palace, and everything about it, was tainted with Moe and Fizz's blood. I bided my time, building my strength, knowing that when I would be strong enough, when the Grand Master would begin taking my presence for granted, I would take off and make sure they would never be able to find me.  But for now, for the first in my life, I had to be patient.

I was constantly moody and unpleasant, purposefully trying to make everyone resent me. If they hated me enough, they would be glad to be rid of me once I left. It's not very difficult to have people dislike you when you're an adult.

Alas, things are vastly different when you're a child. I never really understood why, but in Auranoran society children were viewed as naïve, crippled and dumb, in need of education, guidance and a good thrashing on occasion. Everyone was always talking about how children needed to be taught, how they could not possibly differentiate between good and bad on their own, and how our dark and gloomy world could so easily corrupt their innocence. It was no surprise to them that I behaved the way I did. In their eyes, it was natural, after all I've been through. In their eyes, it was perfectly understandable, since I was only a child.

I grew up on the streets and for the most part, I was treated just like a miniature adult. After all, garbage is garbage, no matter its age.

The servants sent to look after me, the nurse and even the Grand Master did not find my behaviour repelling; they felt they had to help me enter "decent" society. As the days went by, I became more and more frustrated with their attempts to straighten me out. Eventually, I began to lose my ability to argue and yell, I stumbled all the way through rage until I reached an island of stillness.

Apathy. I burrowed deep within myself, filling my soul with veil after veil of blackness until nothing came through to me. I ate when hungry, slept when tired, drank when thirsty, my body continued to function in its bodily ways, but I cut off all communication with everyone.

Even with myself.

Sometimes, people would come in and try to speak with me, but I didn't notice their words. There was no impact, it was as if they spoke a foreign language. I assume they glanced at me worriedly, I assume they felt helpless at the deadness of my silence, but I remember nearly nothing from those days.

And then came the day when I felt strong enough to leave.

Until that day, I had not left my room. I woke up from my dark daydream a month after I fell into it. My room had a balcony that overlooked one of the back gardens. It was only one story up above the ground. It would be an easy climb down for a boy like me.

I don't know how I passed those days; perhaps I was too ill in body as well as soul to ever be bored. But that day it suddenly became very obvious to me that, after hours of staring outside, I knew the route the guards took underneath my balcony, I knew how to climb down.

I therefore decided that I knew how to escape.

All I had to do was wait for night to fall; it would be simple.

That night was full of clouds, hiding the moon and stars from sight. I looked down from the balcony at the black expanse of the gardens below. Some would perceive such deep darkness a nuisance, but I knew the darkness well, it was, for me, an advantage. The guard's footsteps crunched on the gravel path below; I waited until they faded away. I did not rush as I placed my palms atop the marble railing of the balcony. I breathed deeply, calmly and swung my legs over, finding my footing on the stone of the palace wall.

My climb was slow and careful, my heart sped with gleeful excitement and my arms and legs shook. The stonework on the palace wall was meant to be decorative, with ivy and lion heads carved into it. For me this artwork served as a ladder. My time at the palace made my muscles soft and weak, but skills the body learnt in the course of a lifetime are not easily lost.

My feet met the ground and I darted into the shrubbery in time to hide from the guard who was coming around again. I was dressed in a tunic and breeches, fancy for me, but probably not for the people who lived here. I wasn't sure I could pass as a kitchen boy, or how many people had been informed of my presence at the palace. Either way, guards, whether of the city police or the palace, tended to pick on street kids. Avoiding them was a habit of mine.

Once the guard was gone, I began navigating through the palace grounds, a vast compound surrounded by a high wall. It was like a small, self-sustained Kingdom of its own, with a woods on the west side where the King sometimes hunted for game and a small farm that provided the palace with vegetables, milk and meat. I wanted to get to the east side of the compound and reach the city. Even if I was the last street person left alive, I was confident that I could survive. I'd use my Wielder abilities as I now knew I always did; only this time, I wouldn't have others to protect. I would have only myself.

And then it hit me. In the unfamiliar darkness of the palace gardens, the blackness that filled my soul suddenly had a name. Deep within that night, I finally faced my grief.

Never alone. I had never been alone before. Perhaps I was unfortunate, and it was always difficult. But I always had them; they were always, always with me. I had experienced cold; I had experienced hunger, worms and lice, beatings, fear and fever, longing for comfort. I had experienced hardships, but there was one that I never had to face.

Loneliness.

Now it was just me. Only me. Me, alone. Me, against the world.

I couldn't grasp it. Moe and Fizz were gone, gone for a while, gone for the rest of eternity, but I couldn't wrap my thoughts around the void they left in my soul. I hadn't allowed myself a moment to, I didn't want to. I felt small, like a pebble, a grain of sand, lost on the vast earth.

Why? Why couldn't they just come back?

It choked me. My eyes burned, the feeling rose about my ears. I was drowning in loneliness.

I reached the wall. Even with my eyes blurred by tears I was certain it was the area of wall I was looking for, and beyond it, the quietly sleeping city.

Only after I managed to scale it and climb down the other side did I realise I had made a mistake.

I was within another garden, one that grew wilder, one that smelled sweeter. I didn't understand the meaning of a walled garden; it didn't cross my mind to wonder. I ventured down a stone path until the trees parted and I stood before a silver pond. It felt safe and tranquil here. I sat down on a stone bench overlooking the pond and wiped away tears.

***

The whole world was made of moonlight, pale and cold and bright. But there was something brighter than moonlight, a tiny bead of whiteness that concentrated all the light of the moon into it. I couldn't look away as it drifted nearer to me, growing bigger, whiter, brighter.

Then the light took a shape, it had arms, and legs, a head. A girl in a white dress, her heavy pitch-black curls wildly falling down her back. I couldn't see her face from where I stood, so I drifted closer and tried to reach her. I stretched out my hand, my fingers spread out.

But my arms were too short, she was just outside my reach.

"Fizz? Is that you?" I cried

At my voice, like a bird, she flew away.

***

Something hissed at me and stabbed me with a million needles; I had the weight of a mountain on my chest. I opened my eyes to stare into a pair of evil amber eyes. The darkness was illuminated by the yellowish light of a lantern.

"Patrisha! Get off him!" commanded a woman's voice. The cat was pushed off my chest and darted into the bushes.

Cats always had a grudge against me. Shocked that I had fallen asleep, terrified to have been caught, I quickly tried to get up and run away.

But the woman sitting on the edge of the bench beside me caught a handful of my shirt. "Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.

I was stumped. I didn't know where I was going, I wasn't big on plans.

She laughed at my silence, her laugh warm and rich, like heated wine. "I caught you," she said playfully.

"Please ma'am!" I begged, "Please leave me be! Please tell no one you saw me."

She didn't let go. I tried to wriggle out of her grip, but she was strong.

And she smelled nice. There was a smile in her voice when she spoke. "You must offer me something in exchange, nothing in life is free."

"I don't have anything, ma'am. I'm just a kid."

"You're wrong," she said. "You have time. You can give me some of your time."

"I..." I searched for some way to get out of this. There was absolutely nothing I could do.

Or better yet, nothing I wanted to do. I was young, I had plenty of time, I could spare some. "How do I give away my time? Magic?"

She let go of my shirt and laughed, freely and lightly. I turned to look at her.

And stared.

Back then, I wasn't really in an age in which girls attracted me in any way. But even a ten year old boy can be amazed by beauty. What exactly made this lady beautiful? I can never explain to you, not with language, not through a painting. I couldn't really tell what colour her hair or eyes were in the dim light that the lantern made; I could only see that she was beautiful in a way that made me stare.

She seemed oblivious, or maybe she was just used to it. "Nothing as complicated as magic," she said with a smile, "Just stay and talk with me for a while."

I nodded, suddenly bashful and unable to speak. She laughed again, which made me feel more at ease.

"They said you were a tough little fellow. Is your name really Rat?"

I blinked. "You... know about me?"

"Everyone's talking about you." She tilted her head, her long wavy hair cascading over her shoulder. She examined my face thoroughly. "Now I see why."

"I don't want to be talked about," I said impulsively.

"They can't help themselves. They lost hope when he died."

I found nothing to say to this. I had been absorbed in my own contempt towards the King; I had never tried to understand the people surrounding me. I looked away from her toward the pond. The sky had cleared and the moonlight made the water look like black glass.

She didn't seem to notice my silence. "Even at night it's pretty, isn't it?" She gestured around at the garden we were in. "My garden."

"Can I trust you not to tell on me?" I asked because I wanted to trust her, she was pleasant and sweet and I wanted her on my side.

She looked at me seriously, the smile gone from her lips, but not from her eyes. "Rat," she said, "in this palace, I'm the only one you can trust."

I felt relieved. "What's your name?" I asked.

Her smile returned. "Varemini," she said in her bell-like voice.

I was struck dumb. "Varemini," I repeated lamely, "Varemini, like the Queen Varemini?"

"Exactly."

Why? Why did she have to be the Queen? Appalled, I jumped away from her, I needed a safe distance.

"Wait! Wait, Rat!" she cried, rising to her feet. Her voice and eyes were filled with desperation. "Don't leave! Please stay!"

I turned my back to her and started to walk away.

"Please Rat! Please..." She sighed. "No one ever speaks with me. I get so lonely."

Lonely. How could she be lonely too? I stopped walking. "If you're a queen, people speak at you, not with you," she said. "And if I had had a choice, I would have never become the queen. If I had the choice, I would have chosen a different life."

I stood still for a moment, and looked over my shoulder at her. "You're lonely too, Rat." Her voice was soft. "They said that at first you wouldn't stop yelling and that now you speak to no one. It's hard to have other people's plans thrust at you, isn't it?"

I turned to face her. "I'm not Harlock Cooper," I stated.

"I know you're not," she said, sitting down again on the bench and patting the place by her side. Begrudgingly, I came back and sat down next to her.

"You're the first one," I blurted.

She looked at me quizzically. "The first one what?"

"The first one who said my name."

Her smile reappeared, my guard wavered. "Can we be friends, then?"

I thought it over. "Maybe."

She clapped her hands. "Maybe is fine. Maybe can turn into yes someday."

Maybe I'll stay, I thought, just a bit, just long enough to make Varemini feel a little less lonely.