Speak Again

fanfiction by Wild Iris

All Roads

My brother, once I followed the way you had trodden through the shoulder-high wheatfields, and I jumped from one of your broad footprints to another through the snow. Save for the signposts I found in my tutors and my books, there was no path I followed that you had not broken.

And brother, though I loved you, it was not always my own will that made me follow you. And this path was mastered by you too: the one that flings itself from the gate into the masking smoke. You failed me, brother. You failed to lead me into safety.