The Fool (Sometimes called Alexander)

The weather was nice enough - even for autumn - that the Fool decided to grab a nap in the setting sun, just a barely crescent moon visible in the fading sunlight. He would be up late in the Halloween Night for it was a good time for all sorts of fears.

Normally, he doesn't dream. What sort of dreams would shadows have after all? But tonight - or at least this nap - decides to be different.


They burn witches in daylight because, he was always told, they get their power at night and so they were weakest during the day. The last thing you wanted was for the witch to be able to make a last minute break for freedom. This day they were burning three witches, at high noon, in the middle of the town square where the sunlight could shine right on them.

The witches were three women, nearly identical with once long silky brown hair and honey colored eyes. They told fortunes and that made them witches, didn't it? That's what the mayor said. And the Mayor had to be right. The women didn't struggle.

But the man who came to free them did. Dressed in tattered motley he managed to slip pass their guards and would have gotten them out if the mayor didn't catch him. He, the mayor declared, was to be hanged at the same time as the witches.

The Fool frowned at this. He remembered it. He could still feel the rope around his neck tightening and strangling him as he fought for life. He didn't want to go back to the blackness of shadows. He could see them as everything else faded away, standing calmly - though they were covered in water and tightly tied to the stake, the flames licking at them. Slowly.

Just so slowly.

They weren't screaming.

He could hear screaming.

In the distance, in the shadows, the Thief in the Night screamed and was held back by the Wanderer.

His Fate was burning too.

There were no shadows to protect them.

They had no way to get free.

And then he was gone.

But still... why? He could still see them burning. But not from the scaffolding, the rope scratching and creaking. He was... in the crowd?

In the shadows. He didn't remember this. He had no mind then. No thoughts. Just flickerings everywhere.

But... he was seeing it.

Why?

How?

The Fool turned away. He didn't want to watch them burn. It was bad enough seeing it once -even part of it - he had no desire to see it twice.

A glint of something caught his eye (how did he have eyes? Wait... he had a body. He was Alexander now, not Gil, Gil hanged there behind him). Bending down he found a crystal eye about the size of an orange. It was smokey in color, sick brown smoke and fit in his palm easily.

The Fates' Eye.

He had his motley, the Thief had his coin, the Wanderer his staff, the Blind King his crown - they all had something that carried their ... selves in it to be passed down from body to body. The Fates had their eye. One eye for three, this eye, passed around to see.

"Shouldn't you be with the Wanderer?" he asked it. "I remember him saying he found you as he found me." Well, he means the motley.

The eye glowed like it did when one of the fates held it. He remembered the blissful look his fate always got when she cupped it in her hands (the Fool had his fate, for he danced on the edges of harm constantly testing it.)

"Silly Fool," a voice whispered in his ear. He turned around to see Elle standing behind him looking live and hale. Her hair was lustrous and he ached to run his fingers through them, "Have you forgotten how to dream?"

"I have. I do not dream."

"And yet you are," she said, taking the eye from his hand. She ran her fingers across the smooth stone, the smokey brown fading to a soft rose color, her favorite color. "My poor silly fool of a man. A Fool with a new face."

The Fool bowed to her. "Yes, I am Alexander now."

"A protector of men, are you?" Elle laughed. "I like your eyes. They're different from the gray."

"Thank you," he said softly and reached out to touch her. He brushed her cheek and it felt warm - properly warm - and soft like he remembered it. "I miss you. It's been too long."

Leaning into his touch, she asked, "Too long for what?"

"Since I've seen you. I miss you, my Fate."

"Time. Yes. I've forgotten how time passes when in a body." She held up her eye and the sunlight flickered in it, casting about tiny spots of light around them. "I will return to you. Soon. Triplets are hard to come by. Triplets who find the Forgotten even more so."

"If you hadn't had died, you wouldn't have this problem." He sounded like a child, he knew it. But he was lonely. For all the friends and companions he met at the Bar, it wasn't the same as being with his Fate. His Fate and he belonged together as surely as the Ashling and Here did. Perhaps not two parts of one, but their lives were forever twined together as he danced a long pushing his luck. They had been together for as long as he could remember. The days when she was gone were the hardest. And she had been gone for far too many days.

"It was my time to die, my precious Fool," she said, holding his hand. "Just as it was your time."

"You could have told me."

She smiled, it was that sad smile she got when she had bad news to pass on. Ori never minded, but she often held the eye to see the Future. "No, I couldn't. You know that."

"You still could have."

This made her laugh and she leaned up against him. It felt so good to have her there, his arm slipping around her waist. He put his nose in his hair, it smelled like jasmine. "No. I couldn't."

The Fool sighed, her hair tickling his nose. "Why are you here?"

"Because I could. You never dream of me."

"I don't dream." He paused and then amended, "Normally."

"That's not my fault."

"I guess not."

"You're going to wake up now," she said, pulling away. He grabbed at her hands, but they passed right through. "Remember... I'll be coming back soon. Look for me while on guard."

"I don't want to wake up, if you leave me."

Elle laughed. "Silly Fool, I've never left you any more than you leave me." She faded away completely, the eye falling from her hands.

It dropped on the Fool's foot.

Yelping the Fool startled awake.

The sun had finally set. The moon barely lit the sky casting deep shadows out everywhere. If it had been a story, he would have found the eye next to him, or his foot would have hurt. Neither happened.

With a groan he rubbed his eyes and muttered, "I need a drink."