And so we end our tale. If our stories do not please you, we apologize. They are only as we lived them. And there's some of every one in all of us. And so we humbly offer you this fine story. It's all we have left to give, anymore. Our stories. If you tell it, and I hope you do, I hope it brings you even half the pleasure, as it did me to live it. But of course. For my last trick.
One final clever scheme.
I, of course, do live. I do not die, don't you dare weep. For if I were truly gone, could I speak these words now? The answer is no, I could not. Therefore I am not dead. We do not end our story with the ending of my life. But instead we end with the start of me in your hearts. For as you tell my story, I live on. You speak my name, and from now on I live with in you. It's a different way of living, surely. But I don't mind it.
In this place my father lives as well. And my mother. And Ned, he kisses my cheeks and holds me once more. Thomas, Jon, Rey, Edmund, Blanche, and Pippa, all slowly join me here. In the land only bound by your memories of us. My wife comes to me, and then one day I greet my son with open arms. And I am not alone. More than that, I am not truly gone.
Our story didn't make sense to us, not when we were in it. We stumble through searching for answers that don't exists to questions nobody's asked before. And perhaps we shall fade from you. But I ask you to hold one thing. One thing true. Even if you believe nothing else from this story. You're permitted to believe that good doesn't win in the end, that we were the villains of our own tale. That we somehow failed you. That's all right. Maybe that's what our story meant to you. You can have it. I know my own meaning now. And it will be different for you, and anyone else kind enough to hear my words.
But if I can beg of you one thing.
If you forget our faults. Forget our graces. Forget our struggles. Forget our redemptions. Forget every meaning we found in the madness.
Do not forget, don't you dare forget, that we lived.
YOU ARE READING
Henriad (History Plays, Book 5)
Teen FictionThe heir to a criminal empire must deal with his father's terminal illness, raising his siblings alone, falling in love, and the excrutiatingly painful trials that come with growing up. Since his mother's untimely death, Harry has been fiercly prot...
