Work Text:
Tutor,
Will the parting ever grow easier, I wonder? Every time I leave you, I dream that I turn around. That I throw myself from my horse with a grace that I possess only in daydreams, never in life. I run back, and when I reach you, your arms are already open to me.
You don’t have to tell me this is foolish. We all have our own work that needs tending, and I know you would not thank me for such a display. So instead each time I merely hurt my neck, keeping it turned to watch you resolve from a man into a blur into nothing. Still, they’re nice dreams. This time, I caught you looking too, Tutor.
Only hours have passed since I left you there, at the outskirts of Rosemerrow, settling in for winter while I am taking flight for Velas. Perhaps I should have waited to write, to have more to tell you of my studies, but there is so much to learn even in the journey. Take one of my traveling companions, for example: a kind woman with a shockingly abrasive laugh, the sort that grows more comfortable over time, like good wool. Like you, she is a skeptic in matters of the Church. She told wonderful tales to pass the time, of faraway Ordenna and fabled Nacre and the City of First Light.
She spoke of Samothes, of course, Samothes and a companion. I think she meant to shock me with heresy. Do not roll your eyes. I liked her tale, though I am sure my retelling will not hold the same rough elegance as it did in her words. Though there is beauty in reproduction, don’t you think? In the texture that is added to every story as it is told and retold. When we next meet, you can tell me this one again, shifted by your own understanding. We can pass it back and forth, like good wine.
Samothes, my new friend told me, found many joys in solitude: that of the forge and of rule. But for many years, he had a companion. We see this recorded in many histories, in fragments of murals left behind by the Erasure—and of course, my storyteller chided me for interrupting as soon as I said this. In ink, you cannot chide me, so I will continue: in the oldest texts, Samothes was sometimes known to be accompanied by a great beast, a cat or a bear or a wolf, with white fur and gleaming blue eyes.
Once, Samothes and his companion journeyed together, seeking a cure for a sickness that had befallen the City of First Light. The wolf had not been invited; it met Samothes at his first place of rest, nearly feline in its smugness. They bickered, as Samothes had intended to do his work alone. The wolf would not be dissuaded, and had the teeth to back up its point. These arguments were common and well worn between them, and eventually, laughing, Samothes agreed to the wolf’s demands. And so at the next dawning of His sun, they set off together. A meandering journey, one I recognized as the source of many different tales.
At the apex of their travels, at their farthest point from the comfort and warmth of Samothes’s city, they sheltered together in a place full of snow and ice, where the sun hardly touched them. In the middle of the night, Samothes awoke. The cold was creeping into their tent; ice crystals covered the fur of the wolf as it woke as well.
Samothes, in his wisdom, knew the source of the sudden cold. There were shadows here, dark and deep, that could eat the very world itself. He knew these shadows well, and knew that he could fight them.
This time, Samothes would hear no argument from the wolf. He went out alone. The wolf at first did not follow; it curled up around itself, gleaming blue eyes peeking out from their shelter. It watched the white, barren world that surrounded it, and waited.
Night crept forward. The wolf was accustomed to the dark. It had no reason to be afraid. Yet it did fear: it could not see Samothes. It did not know if he had been swallowed whole. Still, it waited, as light slowly came back into the world. Samothes had not yet returned.
When daybreak came, the wolf waited no longer. It ventured out. Snow had long worn away Samothes’s footsteps, but the wolf knew him by scent. It found Samothes bleeding out into the snow, holding his own against one final shadow, which became nothing between the snap of the wolf’s teeth.
It’s lovely, don’t you think? A testament both to faith, and to knowing when faith is not enough. I can hear your scorn already, Tutor, but you always find a way to surprise me with your rebukes. I will await their swift arrival to me.
Your Pupil,
Alyosha
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Tutor,
I recounted a myth to you, a long time ago. A story of Samothes and his wolf that I was once told on the road, and compelled to pass on to you. You probably don’t remember. That letter may be abandoned or burned or lost, just like you are now. I don’t know what made me think of it, after we parted for the last time, when we spoke without words. But it is late now, even without the sun to reckon by, and as always, when sleep eludes me, I take up my pen. I have heard many versions of that tale over the years. I thought I would tell you another.
Samothes and his wolf journeyed together, found shelter, found solace. Darkness and shadow came, and Samothes, of course, did his best to venture out alone. The wolf, however, would not be dissuaded. It was a creature of action, not made for lying in wait. Its stubbornness rivaled that of Samothes, and so in the end he had to relent, and allowed the wolf to join him in his fight. They were beautiful together, in their brilliance, a fierce cut of light against the dark. The wolf, a cunning creature, led the shadows away with clever words, to eat them one by one, and Samothes destroyed the remainder with a broad sweep of his hammer.
That one is my favorite: the brave and noble wolf who is confident in the rightness of its decisions, valiant in victory. It is not often told—some see it as taking away from Samothes’s own glory. But what is sacrilegious in companionship, in sharing a heavy burden with those you care for? The things I’d love to ask you, Tutor, if we only had the time.
Lately I’ve overheard an older account, perhaps pulled from memory as His sun left us. I’ve found that to often be the case: old ways of thinking fall away and resurface again in response to the world around us, like the natural movements of tides. I can’t help but wonder if it is people that mimic nature, or the other way around?
Ah, but these are the kinds of discussions you no longer bother with, though you once would have entertained them with relish. I’ll get to the point.
The wolf let Samothes go alone—a gesture of trust, or of indifference? It hardly matters. It let him go. It waited, and waited. And the wolf did not go after Samothes, as the sun rose and then set. Samothes did not return triumphant. The wolf obeyed Samothes’s wish, and was left alone in the cold, with shadows on every side, and had to find its own way out. That’s all. The kind of story told around a fire, as we wait and look up at the dark empty sky, and wonder if it is true.
You have called me many things over the years, Tutor. Heedless, naive, foolish. Sometimes in my worst moments I believed them. But I have always known you, even at my most heedless, my most faithful: I knew it was only a dream, when I turned away from my duty and threw myself into your arms. I never expected to find you waiting for me.
So I will not wait patiently for your reply, or warn you of your folly, or ask that you reconsider. I know you won’t. I don’t hope to teach you anything. I don’t possess the bravery or stubbornness or wisdom of a wolf, and certainly not of Samothes; my life is only my own. I have made my choices, and you have made yours. I only wanted to tell you a story. I can only pray you are still out there, somewhere, to read it.
Your Pupil,
Alyosha