The Tale of a Great Fixer Who Once Reached for The Dream, part 14 (after battle)
The adventure... has ended.
And thus, so did my dream.
It's not over yet.
We're pretty major characters in your adventures too, you know?
You can't just... end this story without even asking its cast.
So stupid...
Her words of denial are tinged with something new, something we hadn't heard in what felt like forever.
Anticipation.
The door opens ajar.
A narrow opening, but still an opportunity that Sinclair... and the Sinners gave me.
I reach out and seize the opportunity through that opening.
Just as I had always done.
Just as I had rewound the clock over and over again to not lose them.
Stage. Narration.
And La Manchaland with its every move tied to its stage directions.
I know what to do. The flow I must find, the flow I must hitch myself to.
<However...>
<Don Quixote, who despaired that this moment was to be the end of her tale...>
<Still refused to give up.>
…….
Stop it.
I've come back to my senses, woke up from my delusions.
You may have once called me Don Quixote... but I am Sancho, now.
... Don Quixote has never been on an adventure all on her lonesome, however. How could she give up, when she knew they were all counting on her?
Yeah! ... Who woulda thunk, that she'd forget something so important - that she had a whopping twelve companions in her story!
Well, not every fight ended with a triumphant victory.
But every time they were teetering on the brink of defeat, she'd always shout... 'We shan't ever give up...!'... or something like that, right?
With every despair, with every moment of dejection from her fellows...
... the void of despondency was made whole by Don Quixote's tales of wonder, so that their sights were not to be led astray from their dreamward journeys.
The tales were so extraordinarily ingenious, and so brilliant that... it gave many the very resolve needed to rise to their feet at their darkest hours.
…….
Well... uh... right. And we beat the shite out of countless insane bastards... or 'villains'.
Fought some poor blokes who were turnin' into bugs... braved all kinds of monsters, too...
Got swallowed by a giant Whale, too.
A.R.T.
Yes.
The adventures aboard that train would also make for quite the tale.
Oh, and there were bad, no-good people who were trying to take our treasures away from us, too.
We sure had a lot of close calls.
No destination was free of such risks.
But hey, in the end, they got their names positively plastered all over the newspaper. Got their names out there like superstars.
And perhaps... she had more than the twelve companions...
... who cheered her on.
To... the most magnificent Fixer... of the Cinq...
Thine account was a tale... most moving, a tale that could move mountains...
I shall... remember thy tale between every breath... of mine existence...
And I... aspire to be... a righteous Fixer of justice... just as thyself.
Yes...
... Somehow, I always received replies to my letters... When I didn't even write a proper address on them.
Ooooh! Thus cometh a reply!
Hm hm, let's see...
Dear Don Quixote, who dreameth of becoming a great Fixer.
Persevere and enlighten thyself until thou understandest the virtues. Then thou shalt become a Fixer most brave, most magnificent!
Thus, thou shalt never give up.
For thy dream...
... shall one day be realized, even in the waking world...
Manager Esquire!
Dost thou carry a dream, Manager Esquire? Verily... I do!!!!!
It was you, Bari. All those Fixers who wrote me all those replies... it was you.
It was you who delivered all those books to my room.
Remember? We promised to meet again once each of our adventures are complete...
... and tell one another all about our adventures.
Answer my duel...
... and I promise you upon my honor as a Fixer. That I will grant you what you truly seek.
I can... give you a 'tomorrow'.
You speak in riddles, human.
Should I consider that a 'yes'?
Of course not.
Tomorrow is a promise that does not hinge on your blessing.
No, no. That's not the tomorrow I'm talking about. I'm talking about the 'tomorrow' you seek.
You've been living out your days mired in meaninglessness, quietly wasting away inside.
Drinking human blood, compelled not by your own will but by your sickness. In your countless years of existence...
... you've never had any reason to exist, have you?
But your illness... and this applies to all of your kind... is loneliness.
It's the kind of suffering you can't weather through by huddling together with your Family in the dark.
So I offer you this.
Anticipation for what tomorrow holds.
In other words... a dream.
I can make you dream.
…….
Shout your name out loud if... if you would accept my proposition. Let us give it our all, and may the best warrior claim victory in this singular bout.
My name... is Don Quixote.
My name is Bari!
You must come with me, for this journey demands your company. In return...
... when the time is right, the promised timepiece you once heard shall come to be by your side.
Even when you feel like giving up on yourself.
So I promise you this.
That one day, you will return to the beginning of all things...
... and tell them all about the adventures you've had.
... Ah.
You are...
<Don Quixote…>
<You call me a 'promised timepiece', then.>
Indeed... you must be the promised timepiece...
<And I'm here to make good on that promise.>
<Don Quixote…>
<That promise to continue your adventure.>
Has the adventure... ended...?
<No...>
<I don't think... I don't think it's ended...>
Is that... true?
And the adventure goes on...?
<It goes on.>
<Even now, at this very moment.>
Sancho... why do you return without slaying them...?
…….
O Father.
You were always a rebellious Child... unlike my other Children...
Even before you became my Kindred, you... never once begged me for life. Even... as life began to fade from your eyes...
And even after I embraced you as my Child... you never once showed me that attachment to life.
…….
Because... there was nothing to love in that life.
Then... love this place, won't you?
They have gone through hell and back, tried all manner of things to break this madman's delusions, to bring me home to where I belong...
Thus... to me, this woe I suffer is my love, the stakes that impale me are my succor, and the blood of humans they feed me is... my glory.
If you were mad, then that very same madness must have taken ahold of me.
Your ideas and beliefs, which were indistinguishable from utter insanity at first, slowly took root in the barren, cracked earth that was my heart and began to grow.
The times you've spent, the nonsense you've babbled at me as we adventured together only nurtured that hopeless garden.
Yet my dream... was an abject failure, Sancho.
You must have seen it yourself, on this journey of yours.
Was the world you experienced out there... truly righteous, as I had always said? As we had dreamed together?
Was it as Bari said...? Were Fixers honorable heroes, bastions of justice, willing to sacrifice their lives for the weak and the downtrodden? Was it true, that good eventually triumphs over evil?
... No.
That is why... all tales are but fabrications.
I fell off my steed, Sancho. And the shock roused me to the cold waking world...
And I am... too hurt... too broken... to dream again...
Thus... my dream... has met its end...