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For a prompt on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
comment_fic.
Title: Jongleur
Rating: PG
Fandom: Last Unicorn (movie)
Characters/Pairings: Molly Grue, Schmendrick, mention of the others. Molly/Schmendrick, but mostly Molly introspection
Summary: "He had me juggling teacups all night long. Teacups! With tea in them!" Years later, of all the things that they said between them, that was what Molly came back to. Foolishness, courage, and imperfection
Wordcount: 895
Warnings/Notes: For the prompt "imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring"
Disclaimer: Not mine
comment_fic.Title: Jongleur
Rating: PG
Fandom: Last Unicorn (movie)
Characters/Pairings: Molly Grue, Schmendrick, mention of the others. Molly/Schmendrick, but mostly Molly introspection
Summary: "He had me juggling teacups all night long. Teacups! With tea in them!" Years later, of all the things that they said between them, that was what Molly came back to. Foolishness, courage, and imperfection
Wordcount: 895
Warnings/Notes: For the prompt "imperfection is beauty, madness is genius, and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring"
Disclaimer: Not mine
Jongleur
"He had me juggling teacups all night long. Teacups! With tea in them!"
For some reason, of all the things he had said to her, all the things they had raged about and fought about, all the whispers of sorrow and pained understandings ... for some reason, thinking back on that quest, it was that that came back to Molly. It was that that stayed, a lurking whisper in the back of her mind as she looked at him. The aggravated, desperate frustration, the sheer simple annoyance.
He was a great magician now. Schmendrick. A real wizard, as the unicorn said. He was great and powerful, and a blithering idiot, and prone to dropping his staff on his foot even all these years later, and he could make kings bow to him if he really wanted to, and once upon a time he'd spent a night juggling teacups like a fool to please a wicked king.
She curled up against the tree, digging her gnarled feet into the dirt at its gnarled roots. She'd been long ruined, by the time the unicorn came. She was less ruined now, but she was also a great deal older. Schmendrick had offered to help with that, but given Schmendrick, that could result in anything from her getting reduced to a babe in arms, to her being rendered immortal, to her becoming a tree. Schmendrick liked to claim he had a better idea of how to 'suggest' things to the magic, these days, but it still had far too much of a will of its own for her to risk it. She had declined, thank you.
But that was the point, maybe. Or a different point, but pertinent nonetheless. She was older, imperfect, fading day by day, but she was good enough. She could wring a laugh from his lips and a sparkle from his eyes, could have him cower in fear from a well-wielded spoon, could call out to him in the middle of his idiocy and have him listen. She could do ... all of that.
They had all wanted perfection, hadn't they? Every one. Schmendrick, seeking some great, controllable power. Molly, with her dreams of unicorns and Robin Hood. Haggard, gathering all the shards of perfection he could find, in the hopes they would make him happy. Lir, yearning for the love of a perfect woman, for the shape of a perfect story. They had found their dreams bundled in the perfection of a unicorn.
And those dreams, to each and every one of them, had lied. Oh, not deliberately. Never that. The unicorn herself had been blameless, in all that had happened. A perfect, pure innocence. But the dream of her, the face of her, had ruined them all. So quietly. Sorrow, and not regret, until some sliver of imperfection slipped through, and love along with it.
Perfection, in the end, had served none of them on its own merits. Only, at the last, as the contrast to the other things. To the madness and despair of a cruel man. To the courage of a flawed, foolish boy. To the desperate desire of a hapless wizard to undo the evil he had done. To the strength of a woman not to dream her desires, but fight for them. To the pain of a unicorn, learning love, that should send a thread of regret through perfection ever afterwards.
And in all that, at the end of all that, it was what he'd said that morning, her Schmendrick, that still came back to her. The image of him, in the midst of pain and fear and sacrifice and love, juggling teacups to buy them time. An utter foolishness, for the whim of a cruel man, and it had been that that offended Schmendrick, and that that had spurred him on, and that that he had done, even still, even with all his longing for something more.
All the power in the world, all the pain and courage, and it had been that simple foolishness that carried them through. And it had been that, she thought, all these years later, that still came back to her as the first time, of all times, that she'd thought she might love him.
"Come with me, Molly."
"I will."
There was no perfection, now. She wouldn't grow any younger, she would never be the woman who had longed in innocence for a unicorn. Never more, not again, though all the magic and purity of the world should offer. She would never be pure, never be innocent, the way she had once hoped would be enough to draw beauty to her.
Instead, she would be old. She would be gnarled. She would be cantankerous. She would have the most powerful wizard in the world cower before her temper, and laugh in soft-spun delight for her love. She would bear the scars of what she had survived and what she had fought for. She would be flawed, and imperfect, and have the love of a man who had juggled teacups to save his life, and love him back as the woman who had first called him a fool and loved him anyway.
She would be, despite it all, in the absence of all perfection ... happy.
And that, she thought, scrunching her toes in the dirt, was more beautiful than all the perfection in the world.
"He had me juggling teacups all night long. Teacups! With tea in them!"
For some reason, of all the things he had said to her, all the things they had raged about and fought about, all the whispers of sorrow and pained understandings ... for some reason, thinking back on that quest, it was that that came back to Molly. It was that that stayed, a lurking whisper in the back of her mind as she looked at him. The aggravated, desperate frustration, the sheer simple annoyance.
He was a great magician now. Schmendrick. A real wizard, as the unicorn said. He was great and powerful, and a blithering idiot, and prone to dropping his staff on his foot even all these years later, and he could make kings bow to him if he really wanted to, and once upon a time he'd spent a night juggling teacups like a fool to please a wicked king.
She curled up against the tree, digging her gnarled feet into the dirt at its gnarled roots. She'd been long ruined, by the time the unicorn came. She was less ruined now, but she was also a great deal older. Schmendrick had offered to help with that, but given Schmendrick, that could result in anything from her getting reduced to a babe in arms, to her being rendered immortal, to her becoming a tree. Schmendrick liked to claim he had a better idea of how to 'suggest' things to the magic, these days, but it still had far too much of a will of its own for her to risk it. She had declined, thank you.
But that was the point, maybe. Or a different point, but pertinent nonetheless. She was older, imperfect, fading day by day, but she was good enough. She could wring a laugh from his lips and a sparkle from his eyes, could have him cower in fear from a well-wielded spoon, could call out to him in the middle of his idiocy and have him listen. She could do ... all of that.
They had all wanted perfection, hadn't they? Every one. Schmendrick, seeking some great, controllable power. Molly, with her dreams of unicorns and Robin Hood. Haggard, gathering all the shards of perfection he could find, in the hopes they would make him happy. Lir, yearning for the love of a perfect woman, for the shape of a perfect story. They had found their dreams bundled in the perfection of a unicorn.
And those dreams, to each and every one of them, had lied. Oh, not deliberately. Never that. The unicorn herself had been blameless, in all that had happened. A perfect, pure innocence. But the dream of her, the face of her, had ruined them all. So quietly. Sorrow, and not regret, until some sliver of imperfection slipped through, and love along with it.
Perfection, in the end, had served none of them on its own merits. Only, at the last, as the contrast to the other things. To the madness and despair of a cruel man. To the courage of a flawed, foolish boy. To the desperate desire of a hapless wizard to undo the evil he had done. To the strength of a woman not to dream her desires, but fight for them. To the pain of a unicorn, learning love, that should send a thread of regret through perfection ever afterwards.
And in all that, at the end of all that, it was what he'd said that morning, her Schmendrick, that still came back to her. The image of him, in the midst of pain and fear and sacrifice and love, juggling teacups to buy them time. An utter foolishness, for the whim of a cruel man, and it had been that that offended Schmendrick, and that that had spurred him on, and that that he had done, even still, even with all his longing for something more.
All the power in the world, all the pain and courage, and it had been that simple foolishness that carried them through. And it had been that, she thought, all these years later, that still came back to her as the first time, of all times, that she'd thought she might love him.
"Come with me, Molly."
"I will."
There was no perfection, now. She wouldn't grow any younger, she would never be the woman who had longed in innocence for a unicorn. Never more, not again, though all the magic and purity of the world should offer. She would never be pure, never be innocent, the way she had once hoped would be enough to draw beauty to her.
Instead, she would be old. She would be gnarled. She would be cantankerous. She would have the most powerful wizard in the world cower before her temper, and laugh in soft-spun delight for her love. She would bear the scars of what she had survived and what she had fought for. She would be flawed, and imperfect, and have the love of a man who had juggled teacups to save his life, and love him back as the woman who had first called him a fool and loved him anyway.
She would be, despite it all, in the absence of all perfection ... happy.
And that, she thought, scrunching her toes in the dirt, was more beautiful than all the perfection in the world.
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