2021-08-31 5:59:41 ¶ ●

Martin says something about how he and Jon would have never fallen in love if they hadn’t gone through what they had. And Jon is stricken.

But then…then the Eye shows him a thousand thousand universes and a thousand thousand Jons and a thousand thousand Martins. In one Jon works in a library and in another Martin works in a bakery. Or vice versa. Maybe they work in a coffee shop, or Jon is a frequent patron of a coffee shop. Maybe they are old and have adopted a daughter.

They are monsters and selkies and in a thousand worlds dreamt up by authors: woven into works of Tolkien and L. M. Montgomery and a steady stream of Keats tying them together. In old, old fables made new or in new settings made old.

They are in so many different worlds, and they are always, always in love.

Jon cannot believe the Beholding would give him something so glorious and hopeful.

Oh. There it is. The thing that will make him terrified and miserable.

They will never have that, he Knows.

He does not say any of this to Martin.