"Over the course of my trip I was robbed, drowned, and left penniless on the streets of Junpui. In order to survive I begged for crusts, stole a man's shoes, and recited poetry. The last should demonstrate more than all the rest how truly desperate my situation had become.

"However, as these events have little to do with the heart of the story, I must pass them over in favor of more important things. Simply said, it took me sixteen days to reach Severen. A bit longer than I had planned, but at no point during my journey was I ever bored."

Interlude-How to Tell a Story

Kvothe took a long sip of water and had opened his mouth to resume the course of the tale before Bast broke in, his face furious. "I have," the young man said, voice shaking in anger, "sat here quietly while you brushed off your trial as little more than tedium. I was on your side, Reshi! Human trials are laborious tasks that put me forever to sleep." He slammed a hand on the table, "But this is the interesting part!" Bast's anger in that moment revealed itself to be nothing more than a childish fury, like a toddler crying when the crib couldn't again be delayed with another heroic tale.

The story-teller looked at Bast. Chronicler was busying himself with the operation of drying the ink onto the paper, putting more effort into the task than necessary. He had been chastised for begging for a tale once already, and his punishment had been humiliating enough to stop his tongue.

Kvothe looked at his student, a sympathetic smile playing around his mouth. He did, in that moment, look for all the world like a parent dealing with an unruly child, and knowing that the situation should be treated with the Utmost Seriousness but about to laugh anyway. "Bast," he said, taking the gentle route first, "the story is longer today than it was even yesterday. We have hours to go yet. And I promise you that a murder attempt and sword fights are on the horizon."

"Quickly, then," Bast said, unrelenting. "Please, Reshi. I've never been to the sea!"

The Fae despised the ever-changing tides with the same ancient force that drives a superstitious man to shudder at the sight of a broken mirror.

This argument caused Kvothe to take pause, taking another sip of water to delay an answer. His student waited expectantly until the story-teller put the cup down, one eyebrow raising into his red-flame hair. "It was my first and only time at sea, too. The troupe had too many caravans and horses to fit comfortably on a ship," now he seemed to be talking to himself, his eyes catching the far-away glint that he took on when he was telling the body of the tale. "Anyway, the Ruh dislike ships. Too confined. Not enough exits."

"So?" Bast implored, "What was it like? What drove you to the sea?"

"Speed," Kvothe replied, the smile tugging further up his cheeks, "and foolishness."

Standing up, Bast drew more drinks all around, nearly dancing with excitement. "Foolishness! Now you do need it in the story! All the rest of this is you doing brave and clever deeds. We need an ounce of foolishness, or you won't look human."

"Fae are foolish, too," Kvothe pointed out. His piercing stare seemed to know every part of Bast, his follies and weakness, his games, his tendency towards laziness. And Bast's eyes turned all one color under the stare, his cheeks flushing with high color. At that moment, if even the most dim-witted townsperson walked into the Waystone, they would have seen Bast for what he was-a reckless Fae, something to be driven away with iron and fire. But no one entered the inn, and Bast took his teacher's stare head-on, his chin rising, his head tilting. He looked, for the span of three heartbeats, every bit the lost prince.

For a long moment, the student and master stared at each other over the rich wooden table. Then Kvothe opened his mouth and barked out two true laughs, the kind that start near the navel and feel like starlight coming up the throat. "You're right, Bast," he said, still chortling to himself. "I have been Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe the Arcane for too many of these tales."

He turned to Chronicler, who up to that point had stopped himself from putting these words to ink with only the strongest of will. "Write this," Kvothe said. "Quickly, because I cannot spend much time here. But Bast has a point. We have heard of my deeds, but today, this second day, this bridge, is about my follies."

He saw Bast shoot a glance to the sword on the wall, the new-made plaque beneath it, and Kvothe grinned so widely he looked like a boy who'd swallowed the moon. "Not yet, Bast. You were the one who chose to derail the story. So. This tale is of, not the Bloodless or Six-String or even Kingkiller. This is about Kvothe, son of Arlidan, who acted like a boy.

This is also the story of the first time I left a man to die."

.***.

what i should be doing right now is finishing my nanowrimo novel, but instead i'm writing this. it's all bloody nanowrimo's fault anyway, because i'm attempting a fantasy novel for the first time (which is...yeah. pretty hard.) and i decided that i needed to read fantasy to see how it's done, so i'm rereading Kingkiller Chronicles, again, because i hero-worship Rothfuss with a deep and somewhat depressing passion.

my initial thought, discarded because of grad school writing and nanowrimo noveling and, you know, not actually being Rothfuss, was to write The Doors of Stone. mostly i scrapped this because i find Denna boring as hell and realized i'd have to write chapters of her since she, as my brother likes to say, is the whole point of the story.

so this is what i'm left with. a stormy sea. a dark night. the anger of a gentle man.

hope you all enjoy reading it as much as i love writing it.

(also, all credit and glory to Patrick Rothfuss, who did the really, really (i am starting to appreciate how really) difficult job of making this world. i'm just kidnapping it for a while.)