Warnings: Angst. I am an angst muse after all. But there's hope for a happy ending.
Pairings: None right this second, but eventually Bran/Barney
Author's Notes: After partially rereading the series, in preparation for this story, I was once more reminded that Barney was an under used character with magical abilities. In Greenwitch the Dark brought forth his, and his only, ability to scry. In Silver on the Tree, even though he's never been to Wales he already knows/remembers the area and knows ahead of time that they're going to meet Bran and Will. I'm using those abilities alot, especially when it comes to dodging the memory trap. I'm also using those abilities to explain why Barney knows things that he didn't actually see.
Author's Notes 2: // Indicates song lyrics.
/I wish you out of the woods
And into the picture with me/
I sat in front of the easel, paint brush in one hand, palette in the other. I had almost as much paint on my bare chest as the canvas in front of me did. I shivered slightly as the cold draft caressed my mostly bare skin. I looked up, past my canvas, and the window into the dark night sky. The moon was in just the right position to flood my room, glowing even brighter than the small lamp I was using to paint with.
I had not wanted the harsh overhead lights, and instead chose to use a softer one. One that would not chase away my dreams, I treasured them too much because he was in them. In them as he was supposed to be. I had no proof of that; I could not remember him as anything other than the way he is now. But there is something in him that is missing, that he has in my dreams. I know that is the way he should be. Either way I love him, but until he finds that missing piece of himself I know he'll never be whole. And until then perhaps I won't either.
But I am not whole either, not anymore than he is. I've known that for many years. And perhaps that is why I really began to paint. In an effort to find what I've lost, what he's lost. I want the answers, and I suspect that they are in this series of work. The ones I've never been able to bring myself to sell. The ones based solely on my dreams.
My gaze goes back to my work and I look at it critically. I do not know where my dreams come from but they are all important, and I have painted each and every one of them. The canvases they fill litter the walls of this room, where they are stacked in order of when I think they would occur. This, this is one of the last.
He has just left a city and is on a path leading into a forest, which he is entering behind another figure that I can not see as well as I do him. He briefly glances back to…I'm not sure where, but I feel certain that I am standing there. But all the same I am not entirely sure that is correct. There is a feeling of conflict. The edges of the painting are filled with bright colors, hopeful colors. Yet the center, the woods that he is entering, they are dark and foreboding. I don't want him to enter them, I want him to come back, out of those woods and join me. I want to be the center of the picture, but only if he is there.
/I wish you over the moon,
Come out of the question and be./
Instead, I'm nowhere. I've always been nowhere to him. Just little Barney Drew. Simon and Jane's younger brother and Will's pesky little friend. He's never looked at me. Never looked past his friendship with Will to see me. And until he does look past that friendship he'll never see that I can make him happy, the way that Will can't, or perhaps won't.
I'd give him that moon if it would make him happy, if he could just be happy and free, even if that freedom is far away from me. But he doesn't want to be. He clings to his friendship with Will and stays among the sheep that he's never really liked. And he could do so much more, be so much more if he'd just step out of himself, away from the things that make him different, and see those of us who want to befriend him.
Well, no, that's not quite true. He accepted Jane as a friend almost right off of the bat. Simon, well they're not close friends, but they are friends. I want to be more than a friend, and I'm just enough younger than him to make me more of an acquaintance when we first met, and now that we're older… he's withdrawn.
Will said he was never popular as a boy, his hair, eyes, and parentage set him apart. He never forgot that, and it's made him withdrawn, selective about whom he wants near him. And then, I know he lost that something. I'm not even sure he knows he's lost…whatever-it-is that he's lost. But I know. And I know Will knows. I've seen his face when he looks at Bran and Bran isn't looking. He's mourning something that we don't know. Something that I swear we've all forgotten. Something I'd be happier if I knew, something that would make Bran happier as well.
I know Will could set things right, make Bran happy if he wanted too. He could help me remember what we've both lost, because he knows. But Will doesn't want to help us. He refuses to help, even though he knows that neither of us is happy.
Somehow I'm certain that the answer to the mystery of why Bran can't be happy, why I can't remember, and why Will won't help him or me lies somewhere in my paintings, in this particular series of paintings, if I could just find the key!
Copyright 2005