Fading, Like the Stars

It was incredible, how quickly something that seems new and exciting could become monotone and annoying. At least, those were my thoughts concerning the journey that we had undertaken. Things had been new at first. That way of travelling was different, with practically no stopping, unless the horses needed to rest. The landscape was different, too. The closer we got to the capital, the more different it was. It was less wild, less rural, than all the landscapes that we had seen before. Everything here seemed more… more tamed. Even the forests that we travelled across definitely looked like they had been man-made. It had been interesting, at first. But now I realized that I didn’t like it. I shared Daniel’s opinion on that point. The closer we were to the capital, the more I worried. No matter what the others said, the city where we were going was the place where all the powers were concentrated. And it couldn’t be good. There were certainly more guards, more military. They had to be more watchful, stricter, more concerned with the rules.

I agreed with Daniel: the place was going to be more dangerous than all the other towns that we had visited. If it had only been for me, we would have been avoiding it. We would have gone anywhere else. I would even have made a detour in order to stay away from this concentration of hostile forces.

“You’re worried about our destination again?” Rufus asked. I looked at him. We were sitting, side by side, on the front of the caravan. On the road, there was a line of caravans ahead of us, and a line of caravans behind us. Rufus’ words had taken the form of a question, but the look on his face made it clear that it could as well have been a statement. He was certain of what he said.

“How do you know?” I asked.

Rufus shot me a brief smile. “Easy,” he explained in a soft voice. “You’ve always got that look on your face when we mention our destination. And you’ve expressed more than once your doubts about it. I’ve heard how you say that you weren’t reassured about it.”

It was true. I had made no secret about how I felt about this. I had thought that if I repeated it enough, I would encourage everyone to be more careful. Especially Rufus. I was starting to know him well enough. He did things the way he wanted. He stood his ground, whenever he had an opinion to express. The very last thing I wanted was for him to get hurt, and I expected that his little trips on the rooftops wouldn’t go as unnoticed in a city where there was bound to be so much more security.

“You can see on my face what I’m thinking about?” I insisted, clearly not believing him. I didn’t think that he knew me that well.

“I can tell when you’re worried,” Rufus explained, “you always frown…” I frowned and he laughed. “Yeah, just like that. And then there is that look in your eyes.”

I made a mental note of it, promising myself that I would be better at hiding my emotions from now on. “Right,” I conceded, “well, you know how I feel about it.”

“It’s just a city like many others.”

“Sure,” I muttered. But it wasn’t. It would be bigger, with more danger, more temptations. I wasn’t in a hurry to get there. And yet every mile brought us closer. “What’s going on with Daniel?” I asked, eager to change the subject.

Rufus looked away from the road ahead and stared at me with surprised eyes. “What do you mean, what’s going on with Daniel?” he asked.

“He’s been different, lately. Less happy.”

“Really,” Rufus muttered, looking away.

“He talks less and he looks, I don’t know, dark, when he thinks that there’s no one around,” I insisted.

Rufus shrugged his shoulders. “He’s like you, he doesn’t like where we are going very much.”

“No, that’s not all. He doesn’t look worried. He looks unhappy.”

“Daniel is a complex person, Aimée,” Rufus said quietly. “Sometimes he… He’s just… Leave him be. In a couple of days, he will be his usual self again.”

I looked at Rufus for a moment, wondering why he wasn’t showing more concern. Daniel really wasn’t like his usual self. It was easy to see that there was something wrong. “I thought he was your friend,” I said reproachfully. “You should be a little more concerned.”

“He is my friend,” Rufus protested. He was offended by my words. It was easy to see. He didn’t take my reproach very well. “He knows where to find me if he needs me. And if he wants to be left alone, I’m not going to bother him. And you shouldn’t either.” The ton he used made it very clear that we weren’t going to talk about it anymore. I glared at him for some time, then deliberately looked away and purposely avoided meeting his gaze for the rest of the afternoon.

Neither of us spoke again, and the silence that had fallen between us soon became thick and heavy. Things could have quickly returned to normal, had any of us just said anything. But we didn’t speak, and the longer the silence lasted, the less likely it seemed to ever stop. I had never imagined that something like that would happen. We had disagreed on things before. In fact it was amazing how different our opinions on certain points could be. But it had always gone smoothly. We exchanged points of view and dialogued.

This was different, and it was something that had never happened to us. Hours passed, and they only increased our determination to stand strong. And that silence that wouldn’t go away… It wasn’t even a proper fight. If it had been a fight, we could have solved it. We would have shouted, perhaps, and then there would have been the possibility to just make everything better. But this wasn’t a fight. It was a rift, and I had no idea how it could possibly have been created. All that I knew was that Rufus seemed to be waiting for an apology, and that I wasn’t ready to give him one. Not if he didn’t even have the decency to talk to me.

When we stopped for the night there was still not a word that had been spoken between us. Rufus was supposed to help taking care of the horses, and he seemed only too happy to disappear. I was again on cooking duty with Raymond. We departed to accomplish our respective chores without exchanging a word. I didn’t think much about it as I worked. When the meal was ready, Rufus came to sit next to me. It was a habit. Rufus to my left and Émilie to my right. But when I handed him a plate, he only thanked me with a nod. I frowned. I had hoped that the tension, or whatever that strange thing was, would have disappeared. Apparently it wasn’t the case.

Émilie noticed it too. “What’s the matter with you two?” she asked after having looked at us both for a while.

“Nothing.” The answer came from the two of us, but it wasn’t enough to fool Émilie.

“Oh, really?” she said suspiciously.

“Everything’s fine,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to admit that Rufus and I were arguing over something as stupid as who would be the first one to speak. It wouldn’t make sense to her. It hardly made sense to me.

“Undoubtedly,” Émilie replied, unconvinced.

“There’s nothing wrong,” Rufus added gruffly.

“Yes,” said Émilie with a chuckle, “and the coldness is only due to the temperatures.” She sighed. “Are you two having a fight, perhaps?”

“No,” I replied.

“Absolutely not,” Rufus added.

“Very well, then,” Émilie said, defeated. “I won’t try to help anymore.”

Rufus shot her a look that only too clearly meant ‘mind your own business’. “I’m tired,” he announced a little later, getting up.

Émilie looked at him as he left. She frowned, deeply in thoughts. I did my best to look away and not care about where Rufus went.

“You don’t follow him?” Émilie asked innocently.

“You’ve heard him. He’s tired,” I said. “I don’t want to annoy him when he needs to rest.” Then I realized how angry I actually sounded. “Sorry,” I muttered. “I didn’t want to sound rude.”

“It’s alright,” Émilie said quietly, “but now tell me, did the two of you really get in a fight?” she asked.

“No,” I replied shortly. “Of course not.”

Émilie shrugged her shoulders, signifying thereby that if we didn’t want to tell her, she wasn’t going to insist. “Whatever it is,” she said, “I’m sure that it will solve itself quickly.” She shot me a smile and changed the subject. “I’ll be glad when we arrive. The journey’s starting to get on my nerves. It’s so long, and everybody’s growing restless.”

I didn’t share her impatience to arrive, but I shared her opinion on the rest. People were getting bored by the lack of action. They were growing impatient, waiting for something – anything – to happen. Contemplating the landscape wasn’t enough for them. Not to mention that the less the circus gave shows, the less money they had. And things were difficult enough as they were.

“They are,” I agreed. “Everybody seems like… like they’re missing something.”

“Sure, they are,” Émilie said with a laugh. “Look around. It’s completely dead around these parts. It’s nice to rest for a while – bit of a holiday – but it can’t last for too long or we all get bored. You know, it’s nice to have a few days off, but there’s that, and then there’s actually doing something. Living! Feeling like we are useful.”

I nodded quietly. I had never considered things that way. Being useful. It was something that I hadn’t thought about. It wasn’t how society raised you to think. The only use that there was, was to make some profit. Being useful wasn’t a feeling that people were accustomed to.

I talked with Émilie for a few more minutes, then we bid goodbyes to each other, and went our respective ways. When I got to the caravan, Rufus was asleep, or at least pretending to be. I didn’t turn the lights on, to not wake him, and subsequently bumped into a piece of furniture. My eyes narrowed under the pain, and I cursed loudly at everything that surrounded me, including Rufus. He moved slightly, indicating that he was awake and that he had heard everything. I didn’t even care.

The next morning, one of the wheels of Raymond’s caravan broke, and we found ourselves stranded in a ghastly clearing in the middle of a forest that seemed everything but natural, while we waited for them to repair. The whole thing lasted for hours. Rufus immediately offered his help to repair the vehicle. Émilie was nowhere to be found, but since we were stuck in a forest I guessed that she had gone in search of whatever plants or herbs she could find.

I wandered through the camp for a moment. Everyone seemed rather annoyed by the incident. I didn’t know what to do. My help was required nowhere, and they all seemed to have their own business to tend to.

“Are you sulking, Aimée?” came a voice behind me.

I turned round. It was Daniel, who was sitting on the steps of his caravan.

“How did you know it was me?” I asked, approaching.

Daniel smiled. “I pick up things, you know. Smells of perfumes, paces, …”

“I don’t think that anyone here can afford to buy some perfume,” I replied quietly. “I shiver to think of the price. Of course, there might be some who steal it, but I highly doubt it.”

“Yes, there are things more important to steal, like food for example,” Daniel said thoughtfully.

I wondered if that was a message addressed to me. I wondered if he was telling me that he knew how I had managed to survive all these years. I wondered, also, if it was a reproach.

“I don’t wear any perfume,” I said quickly, chasing the thought away.

“Must be your pace, then,” Daniel replied quietly. “So, tell me. What get you down like this?”

“How can you tell I’m feeling down? It’s not like you could see it on my face. And don’t tell me it’s my pace.”

Daniel shook his head. “Ha, Aimée, you underestimate me,” he said. “I can pick up the negative vibes that emanate from you.” My silent doubts made him laugh. “Alright, alright. Émilie told me how you and Rufus were having a bit of a fight,” he admitted.

“We’re not having a fight,” I automatically protested. “I’m just waiting for him to talk to me again.”

Again, Daniel laughed. “So what is it, a contest between you? Rufus is very stubborn, you might be in for a bit of trouble if you’re waiting for him to give in. Not to mention that he can stay silent for days in a row naturally…”

“I’ve got some experience in not talking to anyone in days, too,” I grumbled.

“I’m curious to see – metaphorically speaking – where this will lead. Although I have an idea, of course.”

“Do you and Émilie never disagree on anything?” I asked curiously.

“Disagree? Oh, yes. We have disagreements and fights. Just like everyone else. But not talking to her in days? I’d rather rip my own heart out of my chest.” He said it as if it were the most natural thing to say. It seemed so easy for him to express his feelings. I was a little jealous.

“I haven’t seen you much, these last few days,” I remarked, changing the subject. I didn’t want to continue talking about the state of things between Rufus and I.

“Oh, you know. This and that to do,” Daniel replied evasively. “Been rather busy.”

I looked at him for a moment. It was always complicated to guess what Daniel was thinking. Or if he believed in what he was saying. I could not decipher his expressions like I had learned to do with Rufus.

“Really?” I said, an ironic smile gracing my lips. “Because I was under the impression that you were sulking. It’s all the negative vibes that are emanating from you.”

Daniel laughed. “Right,” he said after a moment. “Only fair.”

“Seriously, Dan,” I said softly after silence had fallen, “I know we haven’t known each other for long, but if there is something wrong, maybe I can help.”

“There isn’t anything wrong, Aimée, don’t worry,” Daniel said very quietly, “though I appreciate your solicitude.”

I nodded. If he didn’t want to talk, I couldn’t force him too. “Alright,” I conceded, “but you haven’t looked very happy lately, and if you ever feel like you need to talk about it, you know where to find me. I know how it feels, you know. I do.”

Dan seemed to hesitate for a moment. “Actually,” he eventually said, “I wouldn’t mind if you accompanied me for a walk, Aimée.”

I stared at him for a few seconds before I knew what to answer.

“They won’t leave without us,” Daniel added, “and from what I gather, it’s far from fixed.”

“Okay, then,” I mumbled, wondering what was hidden behind this offer of a walk. “Where do you want to go?”

“Oh, over there,” Daniel said, vaguely indicating a direction with his hand, “where it’s quieter.” He stood up, and took my arm. For a long moment, we walked in silence. It was hard to tell which one of us was guiding the other, and it was even harder to tell where exactly we were going.

“You don’t like the place where we’re going either,” Daniel remarked suddenly. It seemed to me, at that moment, that he had always had the intention to talk about this. Going for a walk was just a pretext to get away from everyone else.

“Either?” I asked softly, encouraging him to continue. As it seemed that I had discovered the reason for this walk, I stopped, thinking that we were far enough from the caravans. No one would overhear us. But Daniel’s grip on my arm tightened a little.

“Let’s continue walking,” he said softly.

I nodded, and resumed a slow walk, waiting for him to speak again. He did so after a short silence. “You don’t like it because you fear what might await us there, isn’t it right? You’ve never been there…”

“You’re right. I’ve avoided places where powers were concentrated,” I replied quietly. I had no idea where the conversation would lead us, but I had the feeling that something important was coming.

“I can understand,” Daniel replied. His voice was very quiet. “You are scared of what might be there,” he continued, “I know exactly what is there.”

“Rufus told me that the circus had already been there,” I said. It was true. He had told me so in the hope that it would reassure me. It hadn’t worked. “You go to the same places once a year,” I added, with the impression that it wasn’t what Daniel had been talking about.

He had a short laugh. A bitter laugh. “You know that’s not what I meant,” he said.

“No, it’s not what you meant.” I sighed. “You’ve lived there, haven’t you? This is where you come from.”

“Very perspicacious.”

“It’s the reason you’re looking like this, isn’t it?” The question was more of a rhetorical one, and Daniel didn’t answer. “You don’t want to return,” I said again. It made sense. I didn’t want to return to the place where I had lived. Luckily, I wasn’t forced to. If Daniel had chosen to leave the place, then he had certainly had good reasons. And I suddenly understood his reactions. I would have felt the same, if old feelings and memories were forced to resurface.

“It’s not so much that I don’t want to return,” Daniel said. “I technically can’t. I think we have more in common than would appear at first sight, Aimée.”

I didn’t speak. I didn’t want to interrupt him. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

“We’ve both been out there alone before we landed here,” he added.

So this was it, I thought, the story of his life, the story that I had not yet had the chance to hear. I wondered what had gotten me the privilege to hear it now. What made me worthy of hearing the tale? I sympathized and pitied him, too. I knew firsthand that solitude and fear could cause more damage than first appears. I thought about how hard it must have been for him, like it had been for me.

I had heard nothing yet.

“I don’t know how your life was before,” Daniel continued. It was true. The complete story of my life was one that only Rufus had heard. “But mine,” Daniel’s lips were twisted into a bitter smile, “oh, mine wasn’t bad, not by anyone’s standards.” He looked towards me, and for a moment, I had the feeling that he could see me. And perhaps, in his own way, he could. He could understand things about my life that the others couldn’t. The smile he had at that moment was one like I had never seen. It was bitter, and full of contained irony, but it was also full of pain.

At that moment, I broke the promise that I had made to myself, to let him speak without interrupting him, to let him tell the tale at his own rhythm.

“What happened?” I pressed him to say, “what happened to make you leave?”

He spoke again, and his voice was no more than a whisper. “Did you have that impression, when you grew up, that you were different? Well, of course, I guess you could say that I was different. But the difference I felt was of another kind. I wanted something else, something more than the choices that were offered to me.”

I shook my head softly. I wasn’t sure that I understood what Daniel was talking about. But it made no difference to him. He was in a world of memories now. He wasn’t going to stop.

“Do you know how hard it is, to realize that the rules that your parents follow and believe in, are completely stupid?”

It wasn’t a question. It didn’t call for an answer. I didn’t give one. Because I didn’t know how it felt.

“Do you know what it’s like, to realize that you are the only one around who realizes that what they are doing is wrong?” He shook his head briefly. “Do you understand the irony? I was the only one who saw…”

“Daniel,” I interrupted him softly, “I don’t follow. The others, who are they? You say that you were the only one who saw, who understood, but who were the others?”

He shot me a brief smile. “My apologies,” he said quietly. “I was lost in my own thoughts. I should have started with the beginning.” He took a deep breath. “Everyone here knows how it feels like to feel threatened by the outside world. I know what it feels like to be threatened by my own world. I used to live among them. I used to live in one of those high towers, with the luxurious apartments, among the wealthiest of them.”

“Who exactly are you, Dan?” I asked.

But he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t exist to them anymore. I’ve been… oh, you could call it disowned, I guess. They’ve thrown me out, when they found out.”

“Found out what?”

“That I was – how did they phrase it? – that I was conspiring with rebels.”

“Rebels?” I breathed.

“Are there, then? Are there really rebels?” I asked. “There’s actually an organized rebellion?” I could hardly believe it. Nobody tried to change things. Well, at least that was what I had always thought.

Again, Daniel shook his head. “No,” he said, harshly. “Of course there’s not. There hasn’t been for a long time. Outlaws are to be executed, don’t you know that?”

“Daniel,” I whispered, “you said that your parents” – he refused to tell me exactly who they were, so I would be forever condemned to hazard guesses and fear what the truth could be, but in the end it wasn’t what mattered the most – “you said that your parents threw you out, but is that all?”

He patted my arm, a quiet smile on his face. “Why do you always ask questions, when you already know the answer, Aimée? What do you think?”

“No,” I said slowly, repeating the formula that he had just used, the one that we had all been taught from childhood. “No, because all outlaws must be executed.”

“You learned it well.”

“But how… who… how can you be here then?”

Daniel had a bright smile that seemed particularly out of place, given the context. “I knew I had it coming. I knew that she – my mother, that is to say – was going to order my arrest as soon as I was out of the house. But I wasn’t foolish enough to not having a plan ready for when that happened.”

“But why?” I questioned. “Why did you take the risks then?”

“Because I was a boy, and I was foolish, and sometimes even the path that you’re on isn’t the right one, you have to realize to the end to realize it.”

“Oh, Dan, how could they? Your own parents?” My mother had died making sure that I was safe. How could his do that?

He sighed. “Because that’s what they were taught, Aimée, because that’s what everyone considers normal. Things are moral or immoral only because society decides to make them so.”

I looked at Daniel for a long moment. I wondered what his life had been like, really. There were still so many things that he hadn’t talked about. I was only starting to understand what I could have realized earlier, if I had just taken the time to listen to him more intently. If I had observed a little closer. Daniel was by far the cleverest among us, he understood this society more than we did, and he had paid the price for it.

“Do you hate them?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered frankly. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Maybe I shouldn’t,” he added after a short silence, “I certainly shouldn’t, but of course I hate them. How could I forgive something like this? I was just a kid.” His tone was unlike what I had heard before. He’d used irony before. I had heard bitterness in his voice. But this was different. His words were full of contained rage. It pushed me further in my curiosity, making me ask question that maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

“Have you changed your mind? On rebellion, I mean? On the state of the world? Did you stop believing that it could be changed?”

He closed his eyes and was lost in thoughts for a moment. “Do you really want to know the answer?”

Not so much anymore, but I did not say it. He seemed to take it as a yes.

“I know that everyone here thinks that change will come, one day. And they’re all hoping that things will evolve slowly, peacefully. They think that one day magically, people will wake up and not believe in this shit anymore, and that the world will be better.” His grip on my arm tightened and he shook his head. “It doesn’t work like this, Aimée. The world doesn’t work like this. You can’t just hope for change, it’s weakness. If you want a change, you have to reach out for it. Change will not come of itself. It has to be brought by force.”

There it was, he’d said it. And I didn’t know what to say. Because I had never suspected that there was a more violent side to Daniel’s nature. And because part if me agreed with what he had just said.

“We should head back,” Daniel eventually said. “I think that they’ve fixed that wheel, now.”

“Daniel?” I asked as we turned round, “isn’t it dangerous for you? If they wanted to execute you, is it safe to return?”

He laughed softly. “It’s been nearly ten years. No one would even recognize me.”

“Right. Can I ask you one last thing?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Does Rufus, does he know all of this?”

“He knows the great lines of the story, yes.”

“So he would have known, the effect that it has on you…”

“Of course.”

There was a long silence.

“What is it?” Daniel asked.

“Nothing… Oh, alright. I’ve misjudged him again.”

A smile appeared on Daniel’s face. “Am I about to discover the reason behind your coldness towards each other?”

I groaned. “I’d tell you the reason, if I understood it myself,” I mumbled. “Now I just have to apologize.”

Daniel let go of my arm as we reached the camp. “You don’t have to apologize. I believe kissing him will be enough to make him forget that you two even had that fight…”

“It’s not a…”

“Whatever. Can I tell you one last thing?” the smile faded from his face. “One bit of advice, do what you want with it. We are in a good position, you and I, to know that, although everyone agrees that patience and carefulness are virtues, sometimes you just can’t offer yourself that luxury. If you wait, then it might be too late. You lose things very quickly in this world. And tomorrow… well, you’re never really sure that tomorrow is going to come your way, you know?”