idol final: open topic

[sonreir]

Chosen One
For T, with love always

--M.



In our country, you don't choose your path.

You're chosen.

We hold strongly with prophecy, here. Everything is preordained. When you are eleven years old, your parents take you to a festival in the nearest city, where you, along with all the other eleven-year-olds in your townland, will ask the prophets what your future holds. One by one, you go up to the prophets, tell them your name and your date of birth, and they hold your hands and tell you what you will be when you grow up. Butcher, baker, blacksmith -- will you grow to become a lord, or will you stay and inherit the family farm?

Most families go forward easily, knowing that their path is already sealed: the farm has been in our family for eight generations, and little Morrie will be the one to run it, or I've already spoken to Josiah, and he's willing to take Flora on as an apprentice, since smithing is all she's interested in.

There were whispered stories told among the children, about the things that could go wrong. The girl that the prophets had no prophecies for, but instead declared: she has no future, only for her to die before the end of the day, struck by a runaway horse and cart. Other stories, too, about those who went against the prophecy -- the boy that insisted that he would not become one of the pickers, the rag-and-bone men, but that he would go out into the world and find his own fortune, only to return years later, unwilling to speak of his journey, and quietly take up the work he had been preordained to do without complaint.

All of this -- fear and excitement, dread and a certain longing to get it over with -- rattled around in my head, in the month before it was my turn to go.


I was almost twelve when it came time. The festival was held once a year, at midsummer, and my birthday was a month afterward. I was nearly twelve and ready to get on with it when I walked into the tent, ready to be told that my life would be just as boring as everyone had cheerfully assured me it would be, that the hours I had spent learning how to spin and weave, shadowing my mother and her business, were not in vain.

I lined up, my parents behind me, and walked into the tent when it was my turn.

"Your name, child?" asked the woman before me. She was about my mother's age, her face weathered and lined from years of being outdoors. When she was not prophesizing, I guessed, she worked the fields.

"Clare," I said. "Clare Larcom."

"And your date of birth?"

"July 11th."

"Ah, an older one. Put out your hands, Clare."

I held them out, and she enveloped my fingers in her calloused ones.

She shut her eyes and hummed, and I wondered just what it was that I was supposed to do, then --

The prophet dropped my hands with a startled noise.

"You're to be a hero, Clare," she said. "There is a dragon; you will slay it before your twenty-second birthday. And you..."

I stared at her, uncomprehending. A hero?

"Clare, my darling," said the prophet, her brown eyes suddenly sad. "You will succeed in your attempt, but you will die of your wounds. You will die a hero and be given a hero's honors, as become you, but you will never live to marry. Do you understand?"

The stories came back to me then -- the rag-and-bone man who had tried to run from his fate; the girl that had no future.

I walked out of the tent, my eyes downcast.

When Mum asked me, cheerfully, what my fate was -- that was when I broke down.


Someone showed up at our house, a month after the festival, to take me to train under members of the Hero's Guild.

The Guild raised me, taught me. I learned how to use a sword and shield, how to defend myself, and all the rules of conduct that were associated with being a hero. They taught us all the old legends and ballads, too, and focused on our letters and writing, that we might send word to our parents now and again.

I wrote home once a month, and Mum and Dad wrote back dutifully.

We didn't discuss what my fate was, what the prophet at the festival had told me, and over time, that fear lessened. I settled into the idea, however unhappily: this is my fate, and I will die a hero.

We talked a lot, at the Guild, about what it meant to die a hero. There were songs and stories about it, about the great heroes that had come before us and the service that they had done for the world. There was Lugh, who had successfully warned everyone of an invading force and managed to raise enough men to turn the tide of battle, and Rian, who had defeated a giant. My favorite was Cait, who had lived and died sometime three centuries before, and who was known to have killed a score of dragons before she died, succumbing to her wounds after sending off the last. The songs about her were sad and beautiful, and I wondered if there would be songs written about me.

"Probably," said Niall. He was my best friend in the Guild, the one who I fought beside. He'd also been fated to fight a dragon, though not to die -- he was to be the conquering hero -- and as we were the same age, we were lumped into all of the same lessons. "I'll write a song about you, if no one else does."

Niall had wanted to be a fiddler. His Dad was one, back home in their townland, and his Mum was a singer. The gift of music ran in his blood, and he taught me how to play the fife.

"Thanks," I said, when he offered to write a song about me. "Make sure you lie and tell everyone I was brave, even if I pissed myself."

I was fifteen. I had grown used to the idea, flippant about it. I was still afraid, but not as afraid. My training was good, and it allowed me to put it out of my mind: I'll do what I was fated to do, and that will be that. Nothing I can do about it.

"Ah, but that was going to be the best line in the song! 'Our hero, dear Clare/wet herself in fear...'"

I punched him in the arm. "It doesn't even rhyme, Niall."

"It will," he promised. "I'll work on it."

"Hold you to it," I said. "Haunt you if you don't."

"Deal."


When I turned 21, the call came that there was a dragon troubling one of the nearby townlands.

"They'll send me," I fretted to Niall. We were still good friends; had managed to avoid the trap too many of our peers had fallen into and had never become lovers; had never harbored feelings for each other. He was my brother, dearer than -- for I barely spoke to any of my family anymore. My parents had stopped writing, and eventually I had quit sending them letters, too.

"Nah," he said. "It's not a big one; it's troubling the livestock and nothing else. They'll send one of the instructors and a group of intermediates to fight it and learn from the experience."

I sighed. "It's coming, though. I can feel it."

"Can't come yet," he said. "I haven't gotten your song finished yet. Still haven't managed to get a good rhyme for 'cried and wet herself in fear'."

I laughed despite myself. "Ass."

"You appreciate it," he pointed out. "Anyway, I asked Carter -- when you go, I'll be dispatched alongside you. So you won't be alone when, you know..."

I couldn't think of anything to say, so I hugged him.


Another dragon arrived, threatening more than one townland. One of the Great Ones; a named one.

"Tadgh," said the Guild leader, Lorcan. He'd called me into his office himself to give me my assignment, what we knew would be my last. "He's named in the songs. He's the dragon that killed Cait."

I nodded, took this all in stride. "When?"

"As soon as you're ready," he said. "He's already killed two that we know of."

Soon to be three, I thought, but no more.

"Fine," I said. "I'll ride at dawn. Carter gave Niall permission to accompany me; does he still have it?"

Lorcan nodded. "I see no reason why not."

He's not the one fated, his expression read. This is the least I can do.


We left at dawn.

I want to say that I was noble, prepared to go to my death, but I cried, silent tears slipping down my face, as I saddled my horse.

Niall teased me gently the whole way out. I don't recall what he said. It didn't feel important at the time.

During quiet moments on our ride, when my mind would not cease its endless whisper of, I am riding to my death, he sang -- old ballads, all my favorite ones, none of them about heroes that died, but about their exploits before they had been killed. Lugh and Rian and the early exploits of Cait, when she had proven herself to be a hero, and Brigid, all the old tales, familiar and dear to me.

He kept singing until we met Tadgh.

He was in the middle of one of the ballads about Cait, her bravery in fighting the first of the dragons that would eventually lead to her confrontation with Tadgh, when we were hit by a blast of dragonfire.

Niall was surprised. He fell back, off his horse, and mine spooked, too. I managed to half-dismount, my foot caught in the stirrup, and heard a sickening snap as my ankle broke.

"Niall!" I screamed, and unsheathing my sword, I hobbled toward him.

Tadgh reared as I did, a wall of black and green standing before us, all scaly hide and claws, and I focused. There is nothing else I can do, so I have to do this. If nothing else, I'll make a good song.

He didn't try to breathe fire at me again. That was the one saving grace I had. He bent to snap at me, instead, his head turned awkwardly, and when he did, I plunged my sword into his eye, up to the hilt.

He gasped, and his mouth fell open, showing the triplicate row of teeth. I studied them, wondering stupidly why he hadn't tried to attack me again. Is this how it happens?

I don't know how long I waited, before I realized that not only was Tadgh dead, but Niall was, too.


The Guild leader himself rode up to find us.

"I heard that the dragon had been slain," he said, "but that you had not returned, and I feared the worst..."

I nodded over toward where Niall lay. "That is the worst."

"And you?"

"Broken ankle," I said. "Burns. Sprained my wrist, I think. Otherwise..."

"I understand."

He helped me splint my ankle so I could ride, and we went down the mountain together, me sitting behind him on his horse.

"Someone will come for Niall within the hour," he said. "Clare..."

"Don't take me back," I told him. "Please, don't take me back to the Guild."

Lorcan hesitated. "Where shall I take you, then?"

"Anywhere but there."

He nodded, and brought me to Morgan.


I was supposed to die.

The sentence rattled around in my head, keeping me company, the entire way down: I was supposed to die, not Niall. Who will write a song now?

I thought of his voice and his easy laugh, the way his voice sounded when he sang the old ballads -- almost reverent -- and how he had been fated to fight but not to die, how our fates had been exchanged.

I kept thinking this, the sentence looping in my mind, all throughout the ride. Lorcan tried to speak to me, to talk to me about other, minor things -- where he was taking me; what the plan was going forward -- but I stayed silent.

"Morgan is a good man," he offered. "You'll like him. He's...also someone whose prophecy was incorrect."

Was he fated to die? I wondered.


Morgan lived on the edge of the townland, on a plot that was covered in extensive gardens.

He saw us riding before we saw him, and stood at the gate of his land to greet us -- a great bear of a man with black hair and wide-set blue eyes, wearing what I vaguely recognized as the robes of a healer.

"Lorcan," he greeted the Guild leader. "Who have you brought me now?"

"Clare," said Lorcan, helping me off the horse. "She is, ah..."

Morgan looked me up and down. "One of your heroes, in need of healing?"

He nodded once, sharply. Unsteady on my feet, I leaned against him. I must seem in need of it, I thought, or he can read in my face that I was supposed to die.

"I have other matters to attend to," Lorcan continued. "Can you see to her?"

"Of course." He reached out and took my arm gently. "This way, lady."

"I am no lady," I managed, as he helped me up the path and over the door lintel, into his home. "I am -- I was..."

"Time enough for that later," he said, helping me to a cot, set near the fire and made up with clean linens. "Sit."

"I..."

He shook his head. "Later."

He helped me undress, pulling away the burned leather armor and leaving me in the undershirt and leggings I'd pulled on what felt like a lifetime ago, and gave me something that smelled sharply of herbs in a rough clay mug to drink.

"Will this help me sleep?" I asked.

"It will help you heal," he said gently.

I drank it all in one go, set the cup on the floor.

"Who are you?" I started to ask.

I was asleep before I heard the answer.


Every time I woke, those first few days, Morgan was there with another draught, telling me to drink it and sleep.

He set and splinted my ankle, and my wrist. What I had thought was a sprain was a bad break -- bad enough, he said, that I'd be lucky if I could swing a sword again.

He tended to my burns and kept them bandanged, covered in a honey-scented salve he made himself.

I healed slowly. After two weeks in bed, he let me hobble around the cottage, examine the various salves and dried herbs in jars.

"Healer," I said. "You're a healer."

"No," he said. He smiled a little, grimly. "I was prophesized to be a monk. Instead, I am...well, myself. Nothing more and nothing less."

"Did you try to become a monk?" I asked him.

"No."

"I tried to become a hero," I said. "I failed. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried."

"You are a hero," he corrected me. "You killed Tadgh."

"Anyone could have; he didn't put up much of a fight."

"But you are the one who did," he corrected me patiently. "You are a hero."

I hobbled over to a window, looked out at the cottage gardens. I was supposed to die, I thought. I did what anyone could have done, but I managed to fail at the one thing I was supposed to do, what everyone expected of me. What now?

"You can outrun destiny," Morgan continued. "If you're clever. If you make the right choices. The stories they tell...they're to scare the reluctant children who don't want to become farmers, or work in the tannery. It's not fated. You have a choice. The prophet who gave you your destiny might have told you, if you'd pressed her. If you'd been able to ask."

I stared out the window and didn't say anything.


After two months, Morgan pronounced my body healed.

"You can leave at any time, Clare," he said. "You can return to the Guild whenever you're ready."

"No."

"Then you may stay until you are."

I stayed. I helped in the garden, hobbling about on a stick. I had a limp, an artifact of my broken ankle, something that Morgan said would resolve itself in time. I weeded and harvested plants, assisted Morgan in peeling and preserving everything that grew, following his careful instructions.

My wrist healed and I began to remember how to laugh. Morgan found a fife somewhere, and gave it to me. I had told him about Niall; about the ballads and the music, and he did not pressure me to play, but he gave me the opportunity to. I retreated to a back corner of the garden sometimes, and practiced -- just the sounds that Niall had taught me; the scales he'd made me practice. I did not let Morgan hear me.

My hair, always kept clipped short before, above my ears, grew long.

"I can cut it for you," Morgan offered, when I commented about it, but I blanched.

"No, thank you."

He taught me how to braid it, instead -- a skill I must have learned in childhood but forgotten, and I began wearing it in plaits, short ones that stuck out oddly, and then longer ones that hung neatly down my back.

"They'll make me cut it, if I ever go back to the Guild," I said casually, noting that it was below my shoulders.

"Do you intend to go back?" Morgan asked mildly.

I found I did not know.


The anniversary of Niall's death approached, and I still didn't know what I wanted.

"You can stay until you're ready to leave," Morgan offered, his voice neutral as always.

I had found that he was not like Niall -- he did not have his quick sense of humor; he did not tease me. He was slow and serious, downright grave at times -- and yet I was fond of him.

"Would you have me go?" I asked him.

He didn't hesitate: "If that is what you desire."

"And if it's not?"

"You may stay as long as you like, Clare."

I wanted to ask, do you want me to stay?, but I found I didn't have the words.


The anniversary came. I remembered Niall, singing the old ballad about Cait and the dragons, and I cried.

I'd started writing a song about him, about what the prophets had gotten wrong. I included Morgan in it, and his story of how he had not become a monk but had outrun his destiny to become a healer even if he did not call himself one; how mine had missed me and seemed to land upon someone else instead; about poor Niall, and how he was supposed to be the conquering hero, not me with my broken ankle and my lack of desire to continue down that path.

I played it on the fife. I didn't have all the words, but I had the tune. I sat in the garden and played it, and thought about the unfairness of it all -- the end I had been prepared for and he had not; how I had not asked him to come, but how he had come anyway, and how it had sealed his fate.

I played it in the garden, and I cried, and when I was finished, I realized that the ache was beginning to fade.


When Morgan asked me what I would do next, if I would return to the Guild, I surprised him by asking if I could stay with him.

"Not until I make up my mind," I told him, "but indefinitely. I love it here, with you, and I can't imagine going back."

He laughed quietly, surprising me. "Of course," he said. "Can't you tell?"

I blinked at him, puzzled, and he took my hands gently in his. "Clare," he said. "I love you."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, surprised. "I..."

I found, to my surprise, that I did know, that I could tell. "I love you too."


We wed the summer before I turned 24, the lady hero who was fated to die, and the man who was to become a monk.

I thought a little, about the prophecy, as we exchanged our vows. You will die a hero, but you will never live to marry.

I thought, too, about what Morgan said -- about how we could outrun destiny, if we were clever enough.

Did I outrun it, I wondered, or did it simply change?


I asked Morgan at one point, early in our acquaintance, what I was supposed to do with the ending I had been given.

"I was supposed to be dead," I told him, from the cot next to the fire. "Now what do I do?"

"You've changed the ending," he said mildly. "Now you have a chance at a new beginning."

I think about this often, working alongside him in the garden.

Each ending, I think now, is not an ending, but a chance to begin again. My life as a hero ended; perhaps this is what the prophet saw, over a decade before.


Morgan is training me to be a healer, now; to work with him and learn all that he knows. Our work is loved and respected in the village.

We are expecting our first child sometime in the spring.

If she's a girl, we'll call her Cait.

If he's a boy, we'll name him Niall.


~*~


This is the final entry for this season of Idol, and so I wanted to take a chance in one of these rare authors notes to say:

Thank you.

Thank you for reading, thank you for supporting me, thank you for turning out and checking out what my weird take on the topic was for any given week.

I appreciate everyone who has ever had anything to say, good or bad, about what I've done. It has been an honor and a pleasure to write alongside everyone who has written for this contest, and I appreciate all of you. Idol wouldn't be what it is without its wonderful contestants and readers.

I've had an idea kicking around in my head for the last however many months about someone who is fated to save the world, but die in the process, and what would happen if it wasn't them who died, but someone close to them. Now, at the end of Idol, it felt more than appropriate to write about it -- because it's about endings, but it's also about new beginnings.

Thank you for giving me a chance to tell that story. Thank you for reading it.

The end of Idol isn't the end of the road for me. I'm still writing, and you can bet if there's a next season, I'll be in it. Perhaps not as sonreir, but as a different name on livejournal itself.

Thank you, and I hope to see you there.

Comments

[static_abyss]

I just wanted to say that I have enjoyed everything you have written from the very beginning. I remember reading your first entry about the magician and I knew from the first three lines that I was going to love your storytelling. And from then on, everything you have ever put out has by far exceeded every expectation I could ever had. I can remember bits from all the stories you have posted and I keep reading bits out loud to my sister, because I truly, greatly enjoy your writing. You have a vivid and inspiring way of storytelling and I am so glad to see you in the finale.

Now, about this story. I love your premise and the whole idea of a person fated to die and how thag affects their actions. And I think it was an excellent twist that, after preparing for death, she lives instead. Excellent piece, as always.

[sonreir]

Oh, goodness, I don't know what to say! THANK YOU! I really pushed myself this time around, and while it's been difficult, I've had a lot of fun. I'm so glad it worked for you, and I'm honest to goodness tearing up at the idea that anything I wrote is worth sharing with someone else. <3 I loved your writing this season, and I truly hope you turn your stories into a novel, because we need more voices like yours. Thank you for your unwavering support and for the sweet comments you have left me all season long. You're one of my favorite Idolers, and I'm glad we got to write alongside each other.

[meridian_rose]

A really interesting take on prophecy vs choosing your own fate.

[sonreir]

Thank you!

[murielle]

Well done! Have you written about these characters before? It seems so familiar. :-)

[sonreir]

I have not! I have written stuff about the Guild before, but not these specific characters. :)

Thank you!

[murielle]

Ah! That will be it, then. :-)

[megatronix]

Oh, I love this so much. A beautiful fairy tale, and a hero's journey. <3 I love that Clare and Morgan both understood you can change your own destiny. Well told!! I adore your style, it's always so compelling, and I find myself just absorbed in it from the first paragraph, this one and all that you've shared with us. So, so glad I got to read your stuff this season!!

[sonreir]

Ah, jeez, thank you! I stretched myself a lot this season, and I'm glad that it worked for you! I really enjoyed the pieces you shared with us -- I still remember the one about the Rainforest Cafe -- and I'm glad that my stuff made an impact on you. <3 Thanks, again, truly!

[millysdaughter]

I love this story.
It brought tears to my eyes in several places, but in a good way.

[sonreir]

That's high praise indeed -- thank you! <3

[furzicle.livejournal.com]

I can see this as a much longer story. In it, you would expand on the apprenticeship, make the death of Niall much sharper and more heart-wrenching, and draw out the growing relationship between Morgan and Clare with plenty of details. To emphasize the whole idea of outrunning your destiny, Clare would have another subplot going on about finding an unusual or unexpected way to solve another niggling question. Perhaps she would come to this resolution about the time she found herself settling down with Morgan. You have a lovely way with words. I can imagine seeing a row of your books on the library shelf and someone like me checking out out all of them in a binge of reading. PS, I do especially like your phrase, "outrunning your destiny."

[sonreir]

Oh, wow, thank you! I appreciate the detailed feedback, and I love the idea of having a bunch of books...

I'm working on a novel in my spare time that deals with this kinda stuff. It's slow going, but maybe someday I'll get there! Thank you for the kind words!

[babydramatic_1950]

What a lovely story. You have a great gift for bringing these sorts of fantasy tales to life.

[sonreir]

Thank you! Coming from such a strong writer, that's a big compliment, and I appreciate it! :D

[flipflop_diva]

I really, really love this. In general, I love stories where people can outrun destiny or change fate or however. And I love her having to deal with her friend dying instead. And I love her finding love when she never expected to. Everything about this really works for me, and I think it's one of my favorite pieces of the season — which is saying a lot, since there has been a lot of amazing stuff written this season!

[sonreir]

Oh, dang, thank you! There's been some awesome stuff this season, so that's high praise indeed! Thanks!!!

[halfshellvenus]

a chance to begin again. My life as a hero ended; perhaps this is what the prophet saw, over a decade before.
*sigh* If only their society hadn't pushed the myth of infallible, inescapable prophecies. Clare's fate might not have been taken so literally...

And Niall would probably have become the musician he would otherwise have been, following in his parents' footsteps.

The part of this that gives me the most pangs is the horrible chain of assumptions and the desire to soften them that caused Niall to go with her and to be killed instead of her. It's so unjust, and the guilt she would feel over it would last her lifetime.

I've so enjoyed reading your stories all season long, and this one is no exception. I'm so glad you decided to give Idol another try, all these years later. It has served you well, and vice versa. :)

[sonreir]

Thank you! :)

I definitely thought a lot about whether or not it's "escapable" - - I think I finally settled on, "maybe". I think that poor Niall got the short end of the stick, certainly, and your point about how if he'd been able to push back, he might not have died is a good one.

This is a setting that I want to explore more. That's one of the good things I got out of Idol, after returning - - it's forced me to think about new ideas and writing again in a way I haven't in a long time. I appreciate your note about coming back, and I'll be back in the future. :)

[uselesstinrelic]

I was really absorbed easily into this one. There were some little details you added that really helped make depth to the world like the stories of the guy coming back to take up his fated work and seeming a bit haunted for the experience. I enjoyed the read c:

[sonreir]

Thank you! I worried about including too many irrelevant details, so I'm glad it worked to draw you in!

[uselesstinrelic]

I actually could have done with the scenes being a little longer with more build up or more details- particularly in the fall from the horse/Niall died or the him confessing his love part. But I know in the competitions it's a bit of a gamble going long or detailed and you don't want to lose people if you're not sure if you've got them. But you had me, so I wanted more there! c:

[dmousey]

Loved this happy ending! 😊🐭✌🎈🌈

</> This little competition has brought together many hearts, with souls of writers, poets, and we each have gained by it! You have contributed to our growth and I, for one, am grateful.

Thank you for inking all your lovely pieces this year! May I write with you in the future incarnation of Idol!
😊🐭🎈✌🌈