Day 4: Doomed by the narrative
Rated Teen, Veil & Tyn, RoW spoilers
“Where am I?” Veil asked. One minute, she'd been asking Shallan if she had done well, and the next, she'd found herself fading…and now, she was at a darkeyes tavern?
She stepped forward tentatively, looking around. The other people seemed…indistinct, except for one person sitting at the bar who looked deeply familiar, despite the fact that Veil had never met her.
They could never have met, because it was the woman whose manner, fashion, and history Veil had stolen whole cloth.
The woman glanced down and to the side, tilting her ear towards Veil as if she could hear Veil’s thoughts.
“You gonna come join me, Veil?” Tyn asked. “Always room for one more in the Tranquilline Halls.”
“You’re not even Vorin,” Veil chuckled as she sat beside her, her confusion drowned in the sheer excitement of meeting the mentor she’d never actually met. “Am I dead?” she asked, as Tyn gestured to the barkeep for a round of Horneater White. “How do you know me?”
Tyn offered a cheers. “First, to the woman who finally killed me,” she said with an easy smile. She didn’t seem to have taken it too badly.
“To Shallan Davar.” They clinked glasses, and Veil drank her small cup in one go. It didn’t even burn going down. It just warmed her belly, leaving her feeling as indistinct as the rest of the tavern looked. She shook her head, as if to shake off the fuzziness.
“What a woman. I had no idea what I was getting into when I met her.” Tyn smiled again, looking Veil up and down. “She really liked the outfit, huh?”
“She liked a lot about you,” Veil said, and spun her empty glass on the bartop at what looked like an impossible angle. The trick was simply to do it confidently. “Because of you, I could do what she felt she couldn’t do. I had the skills she didn’t have, or didn’t want to have. Because of you, I was free in a way she thought she couldn’t be.”
Tyn narrowed her eyes. “She even took my advice about blending in as a darkeyes. I like that. You know, I’ve been watching ever since she ran me through with that storming Blade.”
The idea that she’d been watching them brought up some acutely embarrassing memories, and Veil winced. “Even in Kholinar?”
Tyn laughed, loudly and freely. “Yeah. You two were a piece of work out there. Nah, I'm remembering that cursed place with the beads.”
“Yeah. And your time at the tower city. You earned that hat and coat, girl, the way you can flip those cards. The way you can talk yourself out of trouble. You earned your reputation. You were based on me, Veil, but you grew out of me. You did things I was never capable of. Putting someone else first. Loving someone. Protecting them. After a while, I realized I was rooting for you. I want you to know that. You were…” She wiped her eye. “Storms, you’re the closest thing I ever had to a daughter. I…”
“You don’t have to say it.” Veil’s breath caught between embarrassment and longing.
“No, don’t you see?” Tyn said. “That’s why I’m still here, hanging on. I have to say it. I was a conwoman all my life. This is my last chance to say something honest in this Heralds-forsaken life.”
Tyn reached out, taking Veil’s freehand in her uncovered safehand. She had stayed behind for her. For Veil. The touch was intimate in a way Veil had never known, and it moved her deeply.
“You did good, kid.” She squeezed Veil’s hand, and Veil squeezed back, treasuring the warmth of it. She reimagined those same worst moments knowing that Tyn, her never-mentor, had been cheering her on. Her throat swelled with emotion, and she could feel her eyes watering.
She looked up to find Tyn’s eyes were also sparkling with barely-suppressed emotion. They both quickly looked away, wiping their eyes in a symmetrical series of motions.
Veil ordered the next round, and lifted her cup. “To learning from the best.”
“If I’d been the best I wouldn’t have gotten stabbed by a seventeen-year-old,” Tyn laughed.
Veil grinned. “Fine. To the woman I tried to become.”
The older woman lifted her cup. “And to the woman you actually became.”
They clinked their cups, then drank. Veil felt this one hit harder. She started to feel a bit dizzy, disoriented. The tavern around them started to swirl and fade. “I am dead, aren’t I?” she said, half in awe. The air seemed to sparkle with an electric energy.
“No, just me. It’s my time now,” Tyn said. She had stood, and she leaned back against the bar casually, looking upwards as the scene faded into a soft, warm light. “Go back to Shallan, kid. Things’ll be different, sure, but that’s life, and you’ve got a lot more living to do.”
The light brightened until Veil couldn’t see Tyn anymore. “Goodbye,” she whispered, as finally, she felt herself floating in the back of Shallan’s mind again. She stepped forward, feeling her former consciousness fade and change into a bright new awareness.
"Yes," Shallan whispered. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
