An Ill Fated Tale about Rosencrantz & Guildenstern

"Is something wrong with your brother?" Guildenstern asked Joliana. She had just been commenting on his sudden wellness, and he was trying to bypass the topic. Somehow, he failed.
"Why? Did he try to solicit you or something?"
Guildenstern was taken off guard enough to answer without answering.
"You don't have to fear his... attentions. My brother...well... he likes attention. He will do or say whatever he can to get it. My sisters have all agreed to let him live with us because its... unlikely he's going to marry in his current financial situation. And we worry that his desire for attention might lead him to a life of immorality.
"There was an... incident. Nothing indecent, but I'd rather not go into it. He's not unintelligent, he's just... not normal. He has no sense. You two have that much in common."
And the conversation moved into the usual grocery list of Guildenstern's faults and weaknesses.
Guildenstern's head buzzed with this new information. It didn't seem to fit with Rosencrantz as he saw him... but, he had hardly said hi to him outside of one conversation.
Had he given Rosencrantz any reason to believe that seduction was the way to get his attention? Or was it truly a misunderstanding... He pushed the thoughts out of his head. Rosencrantz was about to be moved on to Marian, his oldest sister. He wouldn't have to deal with him much longer.

A few days passed without incident; then, a messenger came. It was a festival day, so he barely took the time to tell them it was for Rosencrantz before running off to join the festivities of the day.
Joliana ordered Guildenstern to find him. There were no servants to send to do it for him, as they were all off for the festival day. But, she reassured him, Rosencrantz had a very limited life of habit. There were few places he would be.
It had never occured to Guildenstern to wonder where Rosencrantz went when he wasn't there. And now that he knew, he wished he didn't. The inn was cold and uninviting - particularly in contrast to the revelry outside. There was no fire for the lone customer who sat in dim candlelight eating a stew that smelled a few days old even from the doorway. As Guildenstenr got closer, he noticed the customer was dipping bread that was stale to the point of almost (but not quite) being moldy into the greasy liquid. Most likely the only way to make it soft enough for consumption.
Not at all the kind of place you'd expect to find a young man of Rosencrantz's station, particularly on a festival day. Guildenstern had almost convinced himself that it couldn't be Rosencrantz when the cloaked figure looked up and said
"Oh, hello."
And it was definitely Rosencrantz. Guildenstern felt something like pity at this sight, but not quite. Not pity, but not like any other feeling either.
"Not very hospitable." Guildenstern noted, pulling his cloak a bit closer around him.
"They're closed." Rosencrantz said after clearing his mouth of the food he was eating (Guildenstern didn't like to think of anyone actually swallowing that stuff). "But I like this place, the food has something to it that other places don't have."
"I think that something might be rat droppings." Guildenstern murmered, barely able to disguise his disgust.
Rosencrantz laughed, but then looked warily at the bowl of food he had been eating so heartily moments before, as if seeing it for the first time.
"You have a message." Guildenstern said shortly, dropping the letter on the table. Rosencrantz looked at it as if he had never seen paper folded and sealed before. "Now if you'll excuse me..." He made to leave, but paused a few moments for no apparent reason at the door.
"Wait." Rosencrantz spoke weakly, as if a bit frightened of Guildenstern's potential reaction.
Guildenstern didn't look at the feeling too closely, but he was glad that Rosencrantz stopped him. "Sit with me. Its cold and lonely here."
Guildenstern pushed the feeling of gratitude of being asked to stop far enough down to question him.
"Why didn't you just eat at home or take it home then?"
"I like the company."
Guildenstern sat, the logic confusing him too much for him to argue further. There was a long silence. Rosencrantz didn't eat anymore and nervously pushed the soft edges of the candle towards the flame in the center.
This was the first good look Guildenstern had gotten of his houseguest. Rosencrantz had always been more of an obstruction than a person to Guildenstern - like a small dog that wasn't his. Only there to be shoo'd away when it was on the furniture.
At first, in the dim light, Guildenstern was amazed at how much Rosencrantz looked like his sister. But a moment later it was gone, and he decided it was the light and similarity in colouring, because Rosencrantz was much more attractive than she.
His face was pockmarked - presumably from a childhood disease. Not disfiguring, but noticiable, even in low light. He had a pretense at a beard in the popular style. Guildenstern supposed that it still had the whispy appearance of the young, but the scratchy looking stubble along his cheeks seemed to bely that supposition.
A thought was dismissed before it reached full fruit... a thought that he'd like to know what the stubble felt like. Under his fingers... and maybe a few other places. The thought was still there, but not actually thought... just bubbling under the surface. Expressed only by an absentminded rubbing of the rough table he sat at - feeling the bumpy scratchy wood beneath his fingers. It was quite satisfying.
He brought his attention to the only other thing in the room.
"That's a surprisingly good candle for this sort of establishment."
Rosencrantz leaned close as if disclosing a secret, "Its my candle. I try to avoid tallow candles. If I can."
This brought his mouth into light of the candle, which seemed brighter than it did when Guildenstern first came in. Rosencrantz's lips looked like they were always about to smile at a pleasant joke or happy story. Guildenstern imagined that he must have other expressions, but in a way -- he didn't want to be the person to see them. He didn't probe the feeling too closely and he shook his head to clear the thoughts on his houseguest's appearance.
Guildenstern lay his head on his hand and looked at the wood on the table. "Its difficult to tell the difference between appearance and reality sometimes." He hadn't meant to say that, another half-formed thought that came out of his mouth when he tried to dismiss it.
"Its better to take appearance as reality." Rosencrantz said, after considering the matter a few moments. "Far simpler. You don't have to worry about anything if you assume everything is as it appears."

"But then we'd just be cavemen - watching the shadowns and believing them to be real." Guildenstern had to whip out the Plato.

"If that's all you can see, isn't it better to be happy with that instead of spending your life craning to see what you will never see or know?" Guildenstern didn't speak any more. Rosencrantz's response was both reassuring and unnerving. Rosencrantz started to play with the candle with his knife. Scraping the edges of the candle and then moving his knife into the flame letting the wax melt. Cutting into the unmelted wax, watching the molten liquid fill the cuts.

"Do you think fire lives and hungers?" Guildenstern looked at Rosencrantz, trying to judge whether he was having a little joke with him. But, he seemed quite serious. Guildenstern looked at him and the candle with interest and waited. "The flame... constantly searches for something to cling to. I think... I think it hungers."

The both watched as the flame reached to the right - the left - and stretched straight up into the air.

"That's just the draft." But Guildenstern sounded and felt unsure.

"I know." Rosencrantz seemed a bit sad. "Its probably just reaching a particularly flammable bit of wax. But doesn't it seem to be saying, 'Don't estinguish me. I just want to burn. I only want to curl myself around something, and make it mine.'"
His eyes reflected the light of the candle, and Guildenstern moved uncomfortably on the bench. He refocused on the candle and reminded himself not to get caught up.
"Its contained for our protection." Guildenstern pointed out, a bit snappily. "If it were allowed to run rampant it would destroy the world as we know it. And it could only burn itself out because fire always changes the nature of that which feeds it. Fire uses and must be controlled, contained. Fire doesn't need our sympathy."
Rosencrantz continued to wax sympathetic. "It looks so lonely by itself - in the middle of a candle only to be blown out once its outlived its usefulness."
They watched the candle a bit longer. A buildup of ash on the wick caused the flame to grow and split into two flames - one on each side of the wick. One burned brightly, the other was smaller and dimmer.
"See," Guildenstern said accusingly - though he couldn't say why he was so offended, "Now it is no longer alone and look at what its doing. The stronger flame is sucking the fire out of the weaker. It only seeks power."
Indeed, the stronger flame did seem to increase and decrease in proportion with the smaller flame.
"If you watch carefully," Rosencrantz said quietly, in a tone neither correcting nor disagreeable, "you can see that the smaller flame is fighting to become one with the larger. It seeks to be absorbed - it reaches out... left - right - sinking down into the wick. But the larger flame avoids it."
"Why?" His earlier intentions aside, he had become caught up and felt like he was under an odd spell.
"I guess... if it re-absorbed the other flame, it would be alone then, wouldn't it?"

They silently watched the small drama of the split flame - with one reaching out and the other dancing and swaying away.

The mood was broken by a loud banging on the door, bringing back the reality of the fact they were in a strange and cold place where they weren't necessarily welcome. They froze, but the person who caused the banging shuffled away.

"It's probably something to do with the nature of fire." Guildenstern said.

"I was sure you would make a reference to Prometheus at some point." Rosencrantz said with new jovilarity, as he dropped some coins on the table.

"I intended to, but I couldn't think of anything appropriate." Guildenstern tried to match his happiness, but it felt forced. It didn't occur to him that it was odd that Rosencrantz knew him that well. It seemed natural, somehow.

Rosencrantz mechanically blew out the flame as he picked up the candle - Guildenstern gasped without thinking. Rosencrantz frowned worriedly as he realized what he had done.
"But I had to, didn't I?"
"Don't worry... when you light the candle again it will be like-- reincarnation." And Rosencrantz was reassured.
They left together, and the message was left on the table. Unopened, unread and forgotten.