The Classic Tale of You and Me

Chapter XIV: The Round Table

The Classic Tale of You and Me:
The Round Table

An oil lamp seated atop the messy table lit the room. He was there, crouching towards the table, face almost buried as he dipped the nib of the feather to the ink. His fingers guided the nib to write neat curls of the characters forming the message he has to relay. In the middle of the night, he was writing a letter. He was writing a letter for His Majesty, King William IV, to propose an alliance.

His golden fringe fell a centimeter above his nose bridge as he kept on writing, trembling fingers dipped the nib on the ink again. There he wrote the words that ought to change the fate of his motherland; he wrote the words he could never say as himself. Pale fingers continued to write.

When he finished, he signed at the bottom of the paper.

Len Ackerman.

"You have to rest, Len." Leonard said as he watched the tired man folding the letter and inserting it inside an envelope. "Let us hope they will read that."

"They will." Len said, voice trembling as though he was afraid of someone's presence inside the room, blue forlorn eyes threatened to close due to exhaustion. "Believe me, they will." His quivering fingers placed the letter on the table, securing it under the book he used to read to have a good night rest while humming a lullaby Lady Miku sang him before.

"You only heard that song once," remarked Leonard as he kept an eye on his coward friend, putting his hum into words. "Fremd bin ich eingezogen, fremd ziech ich weider aus. Der Mai war mir gewogen . . ."

Len nodded and flashed a wavering smile. "I can never forget the song that comforted me, telling me that at the end of the day, I will always have a good night." He was always fretful, stammering with his words whenever he talks to Leonard or to Miss Ann, the housemaid. His hands shook in nervousness, his eyes kept on looking everywhere as if the place where he was kept changes every time he wakes. Len Ackerman was always thought mad.

Leonard d' Alembert was with Len ever since. He was his strength, his voice when he could not speak, his hands when he could not fight. Leonard was the only one who helped Len to achieve the little things he had now, and he was the only one who knew to where would his plans to Portia would lead to.

The eloquent gentleman Leonard has become is a result of Len's ideas and writings; he is a result of Len's self disappointments, making Leonard a person Len wished he is. Leonard knows everything about Len for he is there beginning the day Len woke up after he fell from a cliff; beginning the day he promised Len that he will never leave.

Len almost forgot who he was. He was dead every morning, alive by the second sleep -- midnight -- and only Leonard could understand why. 'The dead forgets everything,' Leonard told him when they first met, he was twelve. That was the same time Lui and Sir Rinto found him unconscious washed at the shore of Dublin. 'Everyone thought you are dead, you must forget -- your grievances included. Let us start over, the two of us, and achieve your dreams.' Those were the words Len held close to him, but never had he tried to forget -- never, howbeit Leonard was persistent in wishing him to forget. Leonard taught Len that through forgetting pain would be neglected, too, but it was Len who insisted that his pains were his memories. Other words, he could never let it go.

That morning when Lui bumped into a lady, Leonard said he met Len's wind -- his precious wind who promised to carry all his grievances away. The gentleman declared his intentions towards the lady -- of using her to talk with the royal successor to make their plans happen. But Len had had no intentions of getting her involved. He was glad getting a glimpse of her -- that she was fine, and Rei too, but he never wanted them to be caught in this tangled knots he had sewn.