Jake

08:27 pm: The lights are off save for the solitary table lamp, windows thrown open to the cool night air.

Jake sprawls in the center of the room, boots shoved into a corner, hair mussed and jeans slung low, eyes wandering across the pages of a dusty book.

09:30 pm: The windows in the room are thrown wide open, curtains drawn back, to accomodate an almost non-existent breeze. An occasional thread of cool air is felt through the oppressive, musty heat. Just enough to lend hope.

The bed, chair and nightstand are crammed into the furthest corner of the room, the carpet drawn up and neatly folded atop the pile of furniture. The floor is bare and swept clean of all debris, clean enough to eat off of.

Jake sprawls in the focal point of the room. One arm cradles his head, the fingertips of the other barely stick to the skin of his chest. Dried mud makes his hair stand out in a halo of dark brown and cornsilk blond against the dark wood of the floor. With his pants slung low around his hips and his boots half laced he's the picture of some dirty earth angel, half-asleep in the hottest part of a summer day when there's no one around who needs salvation.

His eyes are closed against the yellow light of the tiny lamp holding court on the nightstand. They do not move; at first glance it appears that he really is resting peacefully in the minimal space that he calls his own on a summer night. For even though the seasons change differently from the space of Milliways, in New York and in Keystone it is the dog days of summer, where the heat is a tangible thing in between the glittering buildings and the asphalt is liquid black that sticks to a boy's sneakers and threatens to suck him down should he pause long enough to get below the surface. And so it is summer here, now, and Jake floats somewhere in between this physical reality and the darker planes.

He is rarely ever here, anymore. Time passes around him as time tends to do - little dramas and entrances and exits revolve and the door is never shut all the way but he takes no notice. There is integration of people and ways of weaponry that he would once have taken part in, but his part in the when of the Tower's quest is all but over, and he must move on to other levels to finish his own business.

There is a waystation deep inside of the black stone tucked away in the hip pocket of his jeans - far below the surface of the reddish flaw in the center of the polished rock in a desert much like one he's seen before that has many doors. Few that he himself can open with the limitations that he has yet to shed, but some that are weak, and one that beckons above all others. It waits for him, as he's constructed it largely by himself where there was only blue sky and dust before, and it will stand for a very long time.

Gone is the sense of urgency that drove him to remove himself from his tet and other interactions. Jake has opened himself to the link that pulls at him and pulls back, establishing a temporary state of stillness. It is no longer a violin string or even elastic. Rather, it is yarn, loosely woven and deceptively strong as the fibers pull tight.

In this place of not-being, he reads many books and passes what little time there is to pass in calm reflection and peace, away from forces that drive him to ever another little death in a place of consequence to everyone but of notice to only five or so, one of whom stands watch and shares khef with him in all things. He will follow to anything that lies beyond here without hesitation.

Oy has become a sigul and part of him and he draws on the power and ability of the bumbler and gives to him, as well, so that they might be better equipped to make the transition. The closer the harder it will be for the Laughin' Dude to sunder them.

Jake reaches for one thing, and that is for the hands of the two angels that will receive him. One is aware of him and welcomes him with open arms; the other is closed and wary, but makes contact as he feels the kinship and the link of the Tower between them all. He is the one that will lead the folken to the black woman and be a focal point for his time. Jake seeks to prevent the twist of fate that ends in his destruction, and to push the other beyond his role behind enemy lines.

He picks at the fibers of worlds and draws threads out one by one, until the way is no longer shut.

08:22 pm: Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Measured steps. A page is turned. Blue eyes scan the lines back and forth, back and forth.

Another step. Another page.

Oy watches from his eternal perch at the foot of Jake's bed as his companion paces and reads.

11:19 pm: Jake's legs carry him automatically up the stairs and down the hall to his room. His mind is far away from the physical - there is no sound and little sense of touch as he opens his door and makes himself comfortable on the narrow bed for the evening.

In his mind's eye he stands in front of a door - ever more evidence of a wheel, should he need it - that is open, and the gloom at his back does nothing to dispel the sunlight and heat filtering through the thin barrier between. Were he to take a step forward - could he - his boots would rest upon sticky asphalt, straddling the broken yellow line in the very middle of the black road. The heels would sink a little and for that moment of transition it could be another trap. He would keep sinking into the sticky black and inside there would be one single luminous orb waiting for him -

(safe it's safe until the year)

- but he knows enough to resist the pull of that sibilant voice that is, for the moment, nothing but an echo and not entirely his own.

There is an order of things that forms in his mind.

12:33 pm: The greenhouse.

His roses have recovered from their early pruning and are growing well - running wild, more likely. The first one he touches bends toward him and unfurls its petals and he is careful to avoid the thorns as he breaks it off low on the stem.

The book, the gloves - everything lies neatly in the drawer of the nightstand in the room above the bar. But today he wishes to feel.

For your memory ... he thinks, and hates himself for it. Ka is a cruel master to rip them away from each other so many times over.

Jake sits on the cool floor and tilts his face up to the sun but the burn in his eyes will not translate into anything more to ease the cold ball of fear in his chest.

09:20 pm: Jake shoves the door open and practically bursts out of the bar, Oy at his heels. He's a bit wild-eyed and color's in his cheeks now as he looks around, slowing his steps to a careful walk.

He waits.

I know you're here ...

Oy's fur bristles and he stalks around Jake's feet, eyes roving.

And then he snuffles the ground, lifts his face to the moon and howls.

08:55 pm: The air is crisp but not particularly cold - spring smooths warm hands over the chill skin of winter and soothes her sharp winds.

Jake's feet carry him down to the edge of the lake and he sits in the grass, tossing small stones into the water that laps gently at his feet.

His mind is blessedly blank this once.

09:00 pm: Jake stares after the retreating gunslinger and frowns.

He looks like something straight out of a Sergio Leone movie ....

And those eyes. He can't shake the feeling that he's seen them before.

He sighs and turns to the remaining group and the dog-creature on his bed.

"I think I'm at a bit of a loss ..." he says, and smiles a little.

10:43 pm: A faint slash of color gives life to the pale cheeks. The eyes remain closed, however, and there is no sign of movement.

Jake Chambers sleeps, and somewhere his mind, tethered to the body by the thinnest of beams, grows weary.

10:56 pm: The boy lying still and serene in bed has color in his cheeks and gold hair that curls around his ears and falls across his forehead.

He has aged two years.

09:51 pm: Jake lies as he has for days now, pale and still save the even rise and fall of his chest.

01:18 am: Jake lies in his bed, sheets pulled up to his chest. His face, hands and every exposed inch of skin is pale. his breathing is shallow.

And he is utterly still except for the riot of movement under his eyelids and the war within his mind.

Oy is perched on the edge of his bed to watch over him.

05:01 pm: Jake is mildly surprised that the door opens. That it lets him pass through. And is even more surprised that it shuts behind him without incident. A small part of him previously ignored and denounced as illogical – going to split you into pieces send you todash really kill you cease to exist – sighs in relief and falls silent. His head feels a little empty without it.

There is darkness, of course, but it is not total. The door is visible behind him. He looks down and sees himself. And the blackness has dimension to it, as if in a dark room with an overhead light. It is not the utterly encompassing, filthy gloom todash and Black 13 promise to the unwary. But neither is there calm or stillness. This isn’t the final journey place that was here when he first came to the bar. Wind and whispers animate the stage and give it depth. He is somewhere in something’s mind’s eye.

Jake drops a hand to his belt – the one Val made him (barely taken it off since he got it) – and finds … nothing.

No guns.

He looks down.

No holsters. No rounds. Just the belt and a jean pocket or three.

There is realization now. Mind’s eye? Yes. This is … set up for him. Someone wants him here, through the door, unarmed. The voice crows and his head is full again, proverbial light bulb bright about it like a beacon.

He exhales and the whispers toss the breath back at him, ruffling his hair and lifting the tails of his shirt. So he takes a step. Another. Building them until he’s loping along at a steady pace towards … what, exactly?

Whatever the dreams mean. Whoever is waiting for him. He is grimly pleased that it has come to this … that there is a buildup, some effort placed into the trap. Not just some dream attack or a knife in him while he’s sitting at the bar.

The loss of the guns would bother him more if he would let himself think on it, but he simply walks and breathes. A hand in one pocket, sleeves rolled up easy as you please. He is a gunslinger now, and it takes more than the simple deprivation of weapons to ruffle him. I shoot with my heart.

There is no passage of time. He walks for seconds, years, moments, centuries and if he were to look behind him the door would be within reach. For he is Bound, well and truly, and now he knows it well, say thankya. No, this is what has been brewing since he came here. He crosses a desert, feels the dryness and the baked earth under his feet. A vacant lot, uneven and overgrown. Train tracks, regular and thrumming the herald-song of a smiling monster bearing down on him. Miles of road, although if the bricks are yellow only Gan knows for certain. Across fields and through crops failing as the world moves on. City streets. Diner floors. Mazes. Jungle. Plain. Wasteland after wasteland, road after road. And ever the whispers and sighs pull and push him forward along the Path of what they would have him say is the Beam.

Is it? Perhaps. Perhaps not. What is important is that he is supposed to think it is.

On and on he goes through all the places and paths he’s been on before, dark around him and the ever-present wind changing as he progresses to reflect them. Until he stops abruptly and rocks back onto his heels to avoid colliding with the barrier in front of him. The wind dies a shrieking death and the air grows warm. Birds chirp. Trees rustle. Bees drone.

It is June 19th, 1999.

A lonely stretch of pavement in Maine.

A soft shoulder bleeding into forest.

A bend in the road.

And a few seconds until John “Jake” Chambers, son of ka-tet and 19, is taken out of the ballgame.

If he were to put a hand against whatever bars his passage would it be the sun-warmed metal siding of an ancient van? Would it be asphalt? Or perhaps the unbreachable door of endless midnight stone in a field of roses?

He whistles suddenly and fills the dark with a strange, nonsensical tune. And reaches out a hand to touch it.

The hand goes through, brushes against something. Paper? No, too thick. His fingers close around it, draw it out. Turn it over.

And just like that. He knows. Has always known.

“There’s some that call me Jimmy, and some that call me Timmy; some that call me Handy and some that call me Dandy.”

The card reads DEATH but not for you.

“They can call me a loser or they can call me a winner, just as long as they don’t call me in too late for dinner.”

The card reads LIFE but not for you.

“I am called many things, Jake of New York. Pray can you tell me a few?”
HELLO THERE AGAIN, LITTLE TRAILHAND!

The card reads THE BOY say true.

Jake speaks. “You are called many things. The Ageless Stranger. Marten. Wizard. Maerlyn, although whether or not you are him is of no consequence. Jack Mort. Randal Flagg. The Man in Black.”

He turns to face the robed man behind him, one hand in a pocket and the other’s fingers through a belt loop, card dangling by a corner.

“Walter.”

And the furthest minion of the Dark Tower and the Crimson King claps his hands together and giggles delightedly. “Say true, Jake of New York! What a bright young cully you are, say true!” The hood draws itself away to reveal a face familiar through contempt; black hair, blue-green eyes, pale cheeks, full lips. Childish glee animates the ghastly features and brings color to the pallid face. A glitter to the eyes.

“I knew it would be you,” Jake says flatly. Calm. The expletive, whatever it was, hangs unsaid at the end of his statement. Walter beams.

“Of course you did, m’boy! I would expect no less from the gunslinger’s protégé, the next generation of Ka-babbies to get in my fucking way! Such a bright child! The fact is, money doesn’t get anyone into Sunnyvale Sanitarium. The only thing that gets you into a place like that is when something big-time goes wrong up here in the attic. Say thankya.”

“Cut the shit, wizard,” he says sharply. Walter sighs and Elmer Chambers’ voice is gone when he next speaks.

“Jakey Jakey Jake,” he says sadly, face falling. “I’d so hoped we could be friends. That you’d gotten past all this Tower nonsense. Let bygones be by-bones and all that jazz.”

Jake drops a hand to his belt. It is pure instinct but what he finds there is surprising; the cold shape of a gun.

When he draws it, however, it is a rose of perfect beauty can ya say halleluia, can ya say amen. He levels it at Walter stem first.

The wizard laughs and clicks his heels together. “We’re not in Kansas any more, little boy! What do you think you could do to me with that, eh?”

Jake pulls the trigger and a beam of White light – for it is the White, to be sure – bursts out of the center of the rose and shoots toward Walter. The man in black howls in rage and delight and disappears in a puff of smoke as soon as the light hits.

Trig little fuck, Jake Chambers, the voice booms in his mind.

There is music now and the black fades before a vision. It is a town that Roland would recognize as Tull that Jake has heard of in stories and seen in dreams.

Walter is standing across the road from him, face drawn up into a horrible parody of a smile. Hands resting on his hips. As the image focuses he swaggers forward and spits on the ground between them.

And as the spit evaporates before it hits the ground Jake realizes something that puts a smile on his face to match Walter’s.

He’s dead. Just like him.

“When did it happen, wizard?” Jake says harshly. The voice is both his and not his. “When did you end up in the same place as me? Was it in the service of your fucking King or were you stupid enough to get yourself killed for other reasons?”

The smile drops off of Walter’s face like slate from a roof, shattering on the dusty earth below them. The eyes flicker and the face twists into an expression of hatred that almost sends Jake a step backwards from the ferocity.

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY DEAD!” he shrieks, throwing his arms out and lurching forward. “YOU FUCKING INFANT SON OF KA, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO STAY DEAD!!”

“I am dead,” he says coldly. “As are you.”

“But you’re HERE, laddie. Here with me. And this time I’ll send you so far beyond the worlds that you’ll scream for mercy as They eat your eyes and your prick and your liver,” Walter hisses. “Watch as they flay you alive and laugh, oh sonny, and I will make sure that the gunslinger sees, oh, sees it well and he will break before my hands at the foot of the Tower. Friendless, old and alone. He will fail.”

“HE WILL NOT FAIL,” Jake shouts. The rose has withered in his hand and there is not another one. And so he launches himself at the madcap figure. They crash to the ground, scratching and clawing and kicking at one another like feral cats in an alley and Jake presses his thumbs into Walter’s laughing eyes, watches the face twist into a grimace of pain and anger.

They roll and battle and inhale dust and sweat, this which makes Jake gag and press his fingers deeper into the sockets as Walter shrieks and delivers a kick to his groin that makes him gasp for air and loosen his hold slightly. The other tests it – not enough to get away and repeats the kick.

Stars burst in Jake’s vision and he transfers his hands to the pale neck. Walter’s flesh is somehow both alive and dead and sickeningly soft under his hands. And he tightens them and bares his teeth in a primal grin as the wizard gasps for breath and clutches at Jake’s shirt.

For all that this is a trap Walter has not remembered that this is also todash, say thankya, and physical rules are highly subjective in the space between worlds. The dead may fight each other here.

“You have forgotten the face of your father,” he hisses, watching Walter’s eyes grow wide and bulge out of his skull.

And then he is thrown abruptly and lands a few feet back, hard, in the dust. Tull watches with gaping, dispassionate eyes as Walter recovers himself enough to crawl forward and get up into a crouch. He puts a fatherly hand on Jake’s shoulder and he would jerk away, not let him even get close to him if he had been able to move. Walter hunkers and gives him a little pat, still wheezing.

Distantly, ever-so-softly, there is a train whistle.

And the sharp, harsh jangle of chimes.

And this is how it begins. A cold tendril of fear curls at the base of his spine.

“I hate for it to be this way, Jakey,” Walter croaks regretfully. The grin is back. “I really do. But time is a face on the water, as you know, and someone’s pulled the plug in your tub. For keeps.” He giggles, voice high and piercing as his fingers dig painfully into Jake’s shoulder.

And fling him against the walls of the old saloon in the next instant, hard enough to blur vision and taste blood. Except it is the saloon no longer; no, what digs into his back are sun-warmed metal bars and wood slats.

Train tracks.

He stares up at the Man in Black, now laughing and spreading his arms as he stamps out a jig, this one triumphant, on the not-floor of the gloom. And the whistle sounds loud behind him, and pain lances through Jake until he can’t breathe or think or maybe even feel the bones breaking and flesh curling, splitting and peeling away.

“And now you will fall,” Walter declares, the voice swelling to fill the air and meld with the blast of the whistle and the ties thrum, riddle-de-dum, shake as the train is a pain and that is the truth is almost on him and he can’t. Fucking. Move.

“Oh nnnn-” he hears distantly, and realizes that he is the one saying it.

“Yes, Jakey.”

“Nnnnn-”

I will show you –

“NNNN-”

“Fear, Jake. I will show you FEAR!”

Roland help me I cannot get up –

“IN A HANDFUL OF DUST!!”

Blaine. And pain. And Walter’s laughing face.

And black.

02:37 pm: His thoughts wander as he walks to the greenhouse:

He pauses by the door to his room and looks at Oy.

"Come on, boy," he says.

Oy stares at him from his perch. The bumbler shakes his head slowly. And it's not just about going down into the bar tonight.

Jake stares at him for a long moment and fights the urge to burst into sudden, violent tears.

"You're staying."

He walks over and sits on the bed next to him. Oy hunkers and rests his head in Jake's lap, closing his eyes. "'Ake."

He strokes the thick fur. Presses a kiss to the top of his head.

And then gets up.

Oy watches the door long after it shuts.

And he was with him in the bar today.

It will have to be enough.

-----------------

The space that was empty two nights before is now blooming in full force.

Jake takes out a pair of shears.

He says the names of the faces for each, as if in blessing.

The last is for Roland.

He sighs softly and bundles them together, fingering the petals briefly.

There is no turning back, as it always is. It seems that he will forever stand on the brink of terrible decisions and battles.

Such is their way. He gathers the letters and makes his way back to the bar.

09:13 pm: Jake inhales the cold air – and a few snowflakes – and shivers a little. The sweater is warm, however, and he’s wearing the gloves that Peter got him for Christmas, and he won’t be cold for long, really.

Under his arm is a bundle carefully wrapped in one of his shirts. In his hand is a formidable mug of coffee. In his mind are faces of the dead.

"No reason to get excited,"
the thief, he kindly spoke
"There are many here among us
who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late"

He passes a little bit of time walking around the lake and staring up at the sky. Winter sharpens the leaves and accents the perfection of the end of the universe’s landscape. His breath comes in clouds before him.

There is peace in the cold; it reminds him that he is flesh and blood and not an angel of Death all of the time. He carries it with him but it is not entirely what he is, because for all of the talk of gunslingers and trials won Jake – son of two and child of one - is still a thirteen year old boy. He is learning his way in the world and the way of the gun all over again in new context.

But there will be time for contemplation of the trees and other things later in the evening. For now he has a task to see through, and as he makes his way to the greenhouse he finds it in him to smile.

--------------------------------------------

The smell of roses cradles him like a lover, their delicate scent bringing spring and memory back to him. The snow outside disappears as he stands in the doorway, eyes closed, taking in the heady perfume.

There is a stirring in the long stretches of red, and buds closed tight against threats of winter visiting their sanctuary unfurl and lean in his direction. He opens his eyes and watches as first one row and then another awakens to his presence and begins to speak.

Jake Chambers, they whisper, petals sighing and leaves brushing against one another. You who walk with Death in his hands, here there is nothing to fear. There is no dust, there is no Tower. Here there is silence. Here there is life. Here there is peace. And he could almost believe it.

Here there is no ka.

But ka is everywhere and in all that he does and so he smiles and enjoys the feel of the humid air on his chilled face before dismissing the sirens from his mind. And the roses subside, slipping back into their dreams and fall silent as the grave.

The smell has become cloying, as such scents will, and his head throbs slightly as he at last finds what he’s looking for; a bare stretch of dirt tucked in amongst Anthy’s roses. The coffee is put carefully out of harm’s way. He sheds the sweater and finds one of the glass panes that opens outward and lets enough air in to clear his mind. The gloves come off next and the bundle is set gently into the waiting soil. The guns remain on his hips.
He flexes his fingers to chase away the last vestiges of cold and buries them in the dirt, coming up with a double handful that he raises to his nose. The smell of good earth meets his nose and drowns out the roses.

Dirt is primal. Sensual. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, what they are all made from and what they will return to. It is clean and fresh and heady and reminds him of forests and plains. There’s no trace of a concrete jungle or steel barrel in this; it is nature. It is the Beam. It is life itself.

He sighs a little and lets it trickle through his fingers, wiping them clean before undoing the bundle. The gardening kit Meg gave him is surprisingly well-stocked; along with the rose cuttings, say thankya, there are a number of good, simple tools. The book that the bar gave him, The Rose Bible, is well-detailed.

And so he rolls up the proverbial sleeves and sets to work.

When the sky lightens and the first daylight peeks over the trees, Jake takes a step back from the neatly tilled patch and rubs a smudge of dirt from his cheek. His hair falls into his eyes and he brushes that away as well.

Jake takes a look around the greenhouse. The roses still sleep, and now it is time for him to sleep as well, but the idea of bar walls to house his ever-expanding thoughts makes him grimace.

So instead he folds his sweater over, drops it on the ground and settles in.

He dreams of poetry and darkness, and when he wakes there is a gun in his hand and roses all around.

I have seen with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a jar,

And when the boys asked her "What do you want?" She answered,

"I want to die."

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.


Quotations from Bob Dylan’s All Along The Watchtower and T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland

05:00 pm: “Fear. I will show you FEAR.”

He is awake again – heart beating fast, palms slick with sweat and eyes searching the dark shapes in the room for faces that he knows. Like the ones that he sees inside of his dreams.

It is his voice that cries this last and not the familiar one in his mind and that is enough to send his hand groping for the light. It flicks on and bathes the small room in comforting yellow.

Jake sighs and leans back against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling. The dreams do not frighten him anymore. There is merely a sense of being pushed forward into something over which he has no great amount of control. There is also cold certainty and a good deal of anger.

She touched me and I saw, O Discordia. He remembers the feeling of her fingers against his cheek and the intense scrutiny and the sea of images conveyed.

The time is very close now and the face on the water is very clear to him. It laughs and ripples and jeers but it is recognizable and it is near to him, as is the mind lurking behind it. It does not touch him, oh no; in all the careless arrogance that characterizes many of their foes there lies a good deal of smarts. It would be stupid to show the hand so early in the game.

But it is there as the worlds whisper against one another. It is in transit from some sort of end on one level of the Tower and it is searching for each of them but for him in particular.

Done-bun-can’t-be-undone. Done indeed and ready to be taken from the oven, cooled and sliced open to bleed my love is a red red rose and take the life of one who falters.

Jake will not falter. He knows this. He also knows that this will not be enough.

10:58 am: Sometime in the hours between night and day Jake walked down the hall to his room, leaving Roland to his rest and Ted to his vigil.

He is calm. And so very tired.

He opens the door, toes off his shoes, places the guns underneath his pillow and falls into bed, bloody shirt and all. And mind awhirl.

He is a gunslinger, say thankya, and this changes everything.

But there will be time for that later. Now it is only the pillow beneath his head, the lingering darkness in the room and the soft, even sound of his own breathing.

He did not miss the pair of golden eyes that watched from their perch in a tree, and when Oy creeps into the room about an hour later and curls up by his feet he smiles faintly.

And then he closes his eyes and sleeps the sleep of the just for the first time since he can remember.

11:40 pm: Jake comes upstairs in measured steps, pausing as his hand slides around the doorknob to his room.

"So it is done," he murmurs, eyes seeing nothing and everything at the same time.

He is sitting on the floor in the middle of the small bedroom before he has time to process the transition.

Eyes wide shut, he sees his father's face. Sees it well, say thankya. Roland is in his mind.

Drawing him through the door into a fierce embrace and a whole life.

Roland smiling in that faint, careful way at an Eddie-ism or a crack from Susannah.

Studying Oy as he first came into their tet.

Roland leading them along the path of the Beam, loping silently beside or before them, always observing and ready for violence.

Shooting with uncanny, heartbreaking grace.

Roland's face as he dies.

And, finally, blue eyes gleaming as he draws ever closer to the Tower and the answer to his life's question.

"So it is done, and so it begins. For aught or nothing."

He picks up the sword with sure hands now, drawing the blade and standing to flow into one of the drills that have become so familiar in such a short time. Whatever dark thoughts lurk in his mind are banished by the motions. The preparation.

I am ready for whatever you may bring, my dinh.

Are you ready for me?

The answer is always yes.

Jake smiles. He stands to lose so very much but to gain everything. And so he sets a foot upon the bridge under the moutain where his balance will be tested once more.

This time he will cross. This time ... this time. He will cross.

04:08 pm: Jake kneels on his bed, watching the skies change from night to day through his window. The chaos of the universe ending right alongside mundane stars in the sky has become almost normal to him now, although he still marvels at the Discordia of it all.

The sword is behind him on the floor, and evey time he closes his eyes he can see it lying there. Slightly crooked, carpet rumpled underneath.

Roland, I want you, teacher.

He closes his eyes and sits back on the bed.

Do you dare, Jake? Do you? What happens if you lose? Where will you go?

This fear is real and fundamental, unlike the terror he experienced in Lud or even the deep-seated loathing that overwhelms him at the mention of the Crimson King. This fear is rational and has validity in his mind.

If he loses, what will happen? Will he just fade? Or will he open the door and be sucked out into the todash darkness?

O, Discordia. For he does not question if he has the skill - he does, and knows it, and lacks the arrogance that would make such knowledge his downfall. He questions whether or not ka still has something in store for him.

If he is to win he must win through his own skill, and that is the truth.

02:29 am: Jake is still out by the lake.

He hasn't left since he picked up the sword Alanna gave him earlier today. Hasn't put it down, come to think of it. It's slung comfortably over his shoulder at the moment as he explores some of the dense forest by the lake, already a deadly friend as any weapon is in his hands. The weight settles something in his head. Makes it easier to think and easier still to smile.

Which Jake is doing a lot of. He sighs contentedly, feeling the pull of abused muscles as he moves. There is a deep, satisfying ache throughout his limbs that will make itself more pronounced when he gets up tomorrow but even that is preferable to inactivity.

These boots were made for walkin'.

Jake smiles and thinks and meanders here and there through the trees.