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There are not many children in the orphanage that Snufkin finds to be tolerable.
Most of them are too loud, or talk too much, or want to touch him all the time no matter how he’s feeling. Most of those that are quiet and reserved enough for him are far too hung up on rules and restrictions for his tastes.
Some of them are needlessly cruel, both to other children and to the odd animal that passes through. Snufkin finds them to be the most intolerable of the whole lot. How could he not when he’s found so many abandoned birds with broken wings? He can’t be blamed for any unsavory feelings he has towards them.
He hates that there’s not much he can do. Most people believe believe the children when they pin the blame on a stray cat because they can’t understand what they birds say. But Snufkin can, and he knows exactly who is really responsible.
But nobody ever believes him. All he can to help is splint their wings as best as he can with sticks and scraps of fabric and what little medical knowledge he’s been able to gather. He wishes he could take them inside where they would be safe from predators, but the times he’s tried that have resulted in severe punishments he doesn't even want to think about. All he can do for them is find them the safest little hollow he can and check up on them whenever he’s able.
Snufkin loves the birds. They tell him stories of far off lands and distant shores and vagabonds that never seem to stay put for very long. They offer him a glimpse at the freedom he longs for, an assurance that what he wants is possible. They offer him hope. It breaks his heart that there’s very little else he can offer them in return than just a small chance at continued life.
The only other thing he can offer them is a chance at revenge. He’s gotten good at that, too. It’s been quite a while since he’s gotten caught.
He feels no remorse over ruining a bully’s week. He doesn’t think he should.
Needless to say, he doesn’t like being around most of the other children, but there is one or two he does find to be tolerable.
One of them, Mable, is quickly becoming intolerable.
She is usually quiet enough that he doesn’t mind spending time with her. He likes people who don’t feel the need to fill every silence. And she’s even willing to break the rules with him on occasion. And when she’s not willing, she still won’t tell on him doing it himself, which he can’t complain about.
But today it seems that she can’t stop talking and he is not in the mood. Especially since she only wants to talk about things he has absolutely no interest in.
Still, he tries to remember his manners and keep ahold of his tail to prevent any annoyed lashing it might decide to do. It would be rude to snap at her. Besides, she’s not usually like this. Everything will probably be back to normal tomorrow, he reasons, even as the thought of there being a tomorrow in this orphanage for him turns his stomach.
It’s not every day that one of the children gets adopted, after all. It’s to be expected that some of them might get worked up about it. He’s just glad she’s not crying about it not being her that got adopted. He’s already seen some children crying in corners today.
Besides, he reminds himself, he doesn’t want to do anything to chase her away. He’s learned that most of the more intolerable children are less likely to try to bother him if he already has company. And the hemulen woman who runs the orphanage is less likely to lecture him about at least appearing to be normal and adoption-worthy if she sees him socializing. If nothing else, he doesn’t want to lose that protection.
“Living in a proper house would be just lovely,” Mable gushes.
“I suppose it would,” he says, supremely uninterested.
“I think I would like to live in a city, you know. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
“It’s possible,” he says. He knows his replies must seem out of place to anyone paying attention. She just sounds so excited and wistful and he sounds like he would rather be talking about anything else. He’s glad she’s too excited to pay closer attention to his tone.
“Oh, wouldn’t it be nice to have a family?”
“Well, of course,” he says. Something quiet in the back of his mind protests at his insistence that he's only offering that as a disinterested appeasement. That he’s lying about it. He ignores it.
Family is dangerous for him, for more reasons than he would really like to admit, even to himself. Family isn’t something he can have. Even if he could, he doesn’t need one, not really.
“What do you hope your adopted family will be like, Snufkin?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I’m just hoping I have one at all,” he says.
She makes an agreeing sound and he almost feels guilt rise up within him. Only he doesn’t, really.
He supposes he should feel bad for lying to her. He hadn't said a single truthful thing to her all day.
He doesn’t want to live in a proper house, not ever. He would never be able to escape the feeling of being trapped if he did that. He knows, because he always feels trapped the second he enters the orphanage. He sincerely doubts any other set of walls would be any different. He actually hates cities. The thought of ever living in one makes his skin crawl. If he absolutely had to pick a somewhat permanent place to live he would choose a secluded piece of the countryside.
And he does know what he hopes his adopted family will be like. He hopes he won’t even have one. He doesn’t need a family. He doesn’t even want a family. Any thoughts that so much as imply otherwise are viciously silenced.
He doesn’t want to be tied down to anything or any one, for that matter. He doesn’t want to be anchored, or rooted, or any of the things that come with being part of a family. He wants to spend the rest of his life traveling to all the places the birds tell him stories about. He wants to leave for any reason at all. He wants to be alone whenever it suits him to be, which he knows is far more often than most people think is reasonable.
Having a family simply doesn’t fit into what he wants for himself.
Sometimes, Snufkin is even glad that his parents left him behind. The abandonment was a blessing in disguise and it benefitted the both of them. They don’t have to go to the trouble of raising him as their son and he doesn’t have to deal with the trouble of having a family--a mother, a father, even siblings, maybe--to tie him down.
It’s a good thing that the family he could have had abandoned him. He’s better off without them.
Nowadays,Snufkin rarely feels bile rise in the back of his throat like he’s telling a needlessly cruel lie when he tells himself all that. Because he’s not lying to himself. He’s not.
The idea of never having someone to turn to who will always be there for him does not hurt. He’s not made to be part of a family. He’s not made to rely on anyone. He’s not made to love or be loved . It doesn’t suit him.
Snufkin is made for a life on the road, never staying in one place for too long. He’s made for endless traveling and endless new experiences. He’s made for endless solitude. That’s what he wants. That’s what he needs.
None of the other children understand his urge to leave. To them, it’s utterly incomprehensible that anyone could not be dreaming of four walls, a warm hearth, and a loving family. That’s what they all want. That’s what is normal to want.
He knows he’s normal. The hemulen woman that runs the orphanage has lectured him about his wants too many times for him to not understand that. If he didn’t already, he’s sure he would eventually from how much she continues to lecture him about it every time she catches him doing something that she determines makes him appear ill-suited for adoption.
She tells him a lot of things. She says that he’ll die, surely, if he means to take the world on alone. That the lifestyle he wants is unrealistic. That he only thinks that he wants to experience the world because it’s new and different and unattainable right now. That if he doesn’t die on his first step out the door he will surely grow to resent the world, hate it even, for being what it is.
It’s not anything like any of the sanitized stories he must have heard, she tells him. It’s unforgiving and cruel for no reason at all other than that it suits it to be and he’ll only be disappointed by it.
Maybe she’s right. Maybe they’re all right. Maybe he’s wrong to dream of lonely nights under the stars instead of a warm home and a loving family. Maybe he won’t actually like travelling once he tries it himself.
He doubts it though.
He may have seen, may have experienced very little of the world himself, that’s true. He’s scarcely seen more than this orphanage. But the birds tell him such wonderful stories and he wants so badly to make his second-hand knowledge of the world first-hand. He wants to experience everything the world has to offer. If he has to suffer some of the bad to get to the good then that’s fine.
Of course , he already knows that the world can be cruel. He’s seen too many broken wings and broken bodies right here on the orphanage grounds to expect anything else. Cruelty exists everywhere and the more places he looks the more he’s likely to find.
But he’ll find kindness too. He knows it. If not from the stories he’s heard than from his own experiences. He very much doubts that kindness can only be found right where he is right now. He doubts that he’s the only person out there that helps broken little birds regain their wings.
How would any of the other children get those happy, loving families they want otherwise?
Snufkin suddenly remembers that Mable is still talking to him. He’s sure he’s been responding to her to assure her he’s still listening. She doesn’t look or sound like someone whose conversational partner has suddenly started doing a remarkably good impression of a brick wall, anyways. But he hasn’t really been listening though, not for a while.
She’s gotten onto the topic of marriage now, of all things. He supposes it is at least somewhat adjacent to families and homes so maybe she did take some sort of a logical path to get here, but he’ll never really know for sure.
Still, it’s just another thing he can’t relate to. He doesn’t want to get married. All it would do is tie him down. And all the talk about how he simply must marry someday is quite restrictive.
He’s already given his heart away, anyways. He’s given it to the world. To far off lands and endless adventure. To the promise of new places and new experiences every day of his life. To open spaces and lonely nights.
He’s already given his heart to an endless sky full of stars and an ocean he’s never seen.
He doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t think he could .
Sometimes he swears that the stories he has and the small glimpse of the sky he’s able to see out the window at night are all that keeps him going.
They’re a comfort to him. A promise. A promise that there’s something waiting for him out there. That he doesn’t have to be what everyone says is normal. That there is someone, somewhere out there, that will finally be able to understand him. That there is a space for him, that there has to be in such an infinite stretch of space, even if it’s constantly moving and difficult to live in it’s there.
Oh stars, how could he not love the world?
Something that Mable says manages to reach him enough that he remembers he’s still supposed to be having a conversation, not daydreaming. Really, he’s being unacceptably distracted. It’s not very polite of him.
Snufkin breaks off the conversation, if it could really be called that as one-sided as it was, as politely as possible. He makes sure to hand Mable some sort of excuse. She doesn’t deserve to have her feelings hurt just because he’s distracted.
He really can’t stand to stay here any longer. What will happen to him if he does? What if he’s adopted before he has a chance to escape? He’ll be tied down to some random family. A family who won’t understand him. A family who will expect him to stay close. A family who will expect him to follow all kinds of rules and restrictions. A family who will, eventually, expect him to marry.
He’ll never be able to leave. He’ll never be free.
He doesn’t have a lot of preparing to do if he wants to leave soon. He doesn’t honestly own very much. Just the mouth organ he hasn’t had the chance to learn to play yet, really. It was a gift from a kind old man that used to visit the orphanage and tell him fascinating stories of the outside world. And what he’s dishonestly stolen isn’t very much either. Money, mostly. Just so he can buy some vagabond essentials once he gets to a new town. A pocket knife. A small book on edible and poisonous plants and another on miscellaneous survival skills and basic first aid, both of which he’s already read and committed to memory. A different set of clothing so he isn’t instantly recognizable as belonging to an orphanage. The blanket on his bed he’ll probably take when he leaves.
He’s been preparing to leave for quite a while now. He thinks that he’s finally ready. He’s collected enough that he should be alright. He’s ready. He is .
He doesn’t leave that night, though he wants to. He’s been patient up until now and he can be patient until the next good opportunity arises.
But as soon as that opportunity comes he swallows the fear he tells himself he isn’t feeling and he vanishes.
Weeks later, Snufkin sets up his tent and catches fish with fishing rod he built himself and cooks his own stew. He’s happier than he’s ever been before. And when he looks up to gaze upon the sky full of stars he's spent his life yearning to sleep under, he notices that it's a new moon tonight.
He thinks of all the wishes he's made under past new moons. A wish for courage. A wish for what he needs to be ready to travel. A wish for an opportunity to leave.
A wish to be free.
They have all come true now, in some way or another.
With that in mind and desperate hope fluttering in his heart, he stands, spins around three times, and wishes for something different yet altogether the same as all his other wishes.
"I wish to marry the world,” he whispers into the still night air, a secret between him and the moon and the world he loves so much. “Please,” he says, because this is a bigger request than most and it’s more something he wants than something he needs, “if I must marry, please, let me marry the world."
It feels a bit like more a plea than anything else, but it's a wish all the same. A wish under the new moon.
Surely, it will come true. It has to come true. It's the only future he can see for himself where he’s happy .
The world is vast, bigger than he had ever dared to imagine. There’s enough room in it for more adventures and more new experiences than he could ever hope for, so many he could spend a thousand lifetimes exploring and still have an unimaginable amount left over
It’s full to bursting of all kinds of interesting things and still there’s room enough for him. It's almost enough of a relief to pull tears from his eyes.
More importantly, the world is his home, the one he imagined for himself on rain soaked days and restless nights. It's everything he needs. It’s a comfort, a promise, a chance. It’s freedom and space and adventures around every corner. It’s understanding and acceptance, even if only between the two of them.
He doesn’t need anything else. He doesn’t need anyone else.
He’ll find love in the lush forests, a warm hearth in sunny southern beaches, joy in flowering meadows, and laughter in babbling brooks. He’ll be his own family, all on his own.
He can't imagine anything better, not for someone like him.
…
“Something on your mind?” Moomintroll says.
Snufkin starts. He hadn’t realized he had allowed himself to become so absorbed in his thoughts.
He realizes he’s not playing his harmonica anymore. He wonders what sort of tune he must have been playing before he stopped for Moomintroll to ask that question. He doesn’t quite remember, but he knows he tends to play his emotions if he isn’t paying enough attention.
Snufkin also knows that Moomintroll knows that he does that too. Even if he hadn’t figured it out early in their friendship, he’s sure he would have been caught out by now. He’s been caught absentmindedly playing too many lovesick little tunes while staring at Moomintroll for him not have realized.
Though maybe it’s the odd look on his face that prompted the question. That’s another possibility.
“I’ll tell you when I figure it out,” he says, distantly. He’s just connected some dots and he needs a moment to step back and see the picture they make.
“Okay. Take your time,” he says, offering him a small smile.
Despite the fact that they’re sitting in the shade Snufkin looks at him and is sure that the sun itself has come down to sit beside him. Or, he would be, if he didn’t know that Moomintroll could outshine the sun and all the stars without even trying .
Snufkin feels raw affection grip his heart like it has a thousand times before. It’s a familiar feeling, but it’s also different each time he feels it. Every smile he receives is different. Every single one.
He loves all of them. So much that he can hardly stand it.
He watches Moomintroll return to what he was doing before Snufkin interrupted the moment they were having by deciding to have a life-altering realization or two.
He’s making a flower crown out of a stack of carefully selected flowers he picked earlier and brought into the shade. It will likely go around Snufkin’s hat when it’s done, the last one he made is already beginning to wilt, unfortunately. Snufkin will have to press those flowers soon if he wants to keep them. And he does want to keep them. The flowers are another reminder that he is loved and cherished and wanted.
He doesn’t think the extra reminders are strictly necessary now, not when he’s got that absolute novel of a love letter Moomintroll gave him last autumn to read. But he still likes them.
Stars, Moomintroll is too good for him, really. He makes him flower crowns and gifts him precious smiles and so much love he doesn’t know what to do with all. He’s so kind and warm and full of so much love for everyone. He offers him space and understanding. Moomintroll is everything he could possibly hope for in a partner.
Snufkin thinks that he’s absolutely the sort of person that would help little birds regain their wings. In fact, he knows he is. He’s seen him do it. It brings him a very unique sort of happiness to know that that’s the sort of person he’s found for himself.
Every second Snufkin thinks he couldn’t possibly fall any deeper in love with him. He’s always wrong.
He feels his heart melt in his chest, all gooey and soft. He blames it on the terrible, wonderful warmth he can feel bubbling up all around it. It feels like sinking down into the waters of a hot spring, warm and relaxing and good.
It’s a comfortable feeling , not overwhelming like so many others he feels. But that’s just the thing isn’t it? It’s comfortable, which not something he ever thought love would feel like. Not to him. No, he’d always thought it would feel stifling and terribly restrictive. That it would cage him. That it would tie him down. That it would hurt him, somehow. That it would either end in him being abandoned again or having to give up traveling.
But that was before Moomintroll. Before the entire Moomin family and all their friends really. Loving them didn’t hurt. Being loved loved by them didn’t hurt. Somehow, they were able to gently convinced him to accept him something he never allowed himself to admit he even wanted.
He’s staring, he knows he is. He’s sure he looks like a bit lovestruck, staring at Moomintroll with soft eyes and a softer smile. But Moomintroll doesn’t seem to mind. He flashes him quick smiles whenever he glances up and catches Snufkin’s gaze.
He can’t help it really. Snufkin would rather not take his eyes off Moomintroll under normal circumstances. He really can’t be blamed for not being able to tear his gaze away from him while he’s still reeling from sudden, incredibly important, life-altering realizations.
The odd thing is, as life-altering as he thinks the realizations should be, they don’t really feel that way. They should shake him to his core. They should challenge his own perception of himself. They should scare him like very thought of such such a thing did as a child.
He should be running away right now, probably. He should be packing up his things and leaving. He should be hundreds of miles from Moominvalley with no intentions of ever turning back. He should be feeling trapped or caged or tied down and panicking about it. That’s what he had always assumed his reaction would be.
But, he doesn’t want to do any of that. He doesn’t feel like he should want to be doing any of that.
He wants to stay right where he is. He wants to continue staying in Moominvalley until at least early winter and then he wants to come back next spring. He doesn’t feel trapped or caged or tied down in any way that he’s not entirely okay with.
If anything, he feels more free than ever. He feels happier than ever. So happy he barely process it. He can feel it buzzing under his skin and pulsing through his veins. It makes his chest feel tight. It makes him feel lighter than air. It steals his breath in the best way.
But for all he feels like jumping up and shouting his happiness until the whole world knows it, until the sun sets and he can tell the moon and the stars too, he also feels strangely calm.
For as big of a realization as he thinks it is, it certainly feels very small now that he looks at it. It’s life-altering, now that he knows it, sure. But it isn’t foundation shaking or anything so extreme.
It feels like a truth he has always known.
He supposes he has always known it. Or at least known it for quite a while now. The thought has been there in the back of his mind for years, now that he thinks about. It’s been pushing at him, begging him to finally allow himself to think it.
He’s almost thought it many times. When sharing sweet kissing and warm cuddles with Moomintroll. While eating dinner at Moominhouse. While inside playing cards with all his friends on rain soaked days. While planning pranks with Little My. While out adventuring both on his own and with whoever decided to join him. Even during winter, while he’s so far away from all of them. But he’s never been quite brave enough to actually do it. Not until now.
He has a family. He does. And they love and understand him.
And Moominvalley is his home.
Snufkin had always thought that those things weren’t for him. They might be for others, but never for him.
For him, a family, a home, was always something that was unattainable. Something he shouldn’t even want. An impossible, forbidden dream.
They were things he couldn’t have, shouldn’t have because of who he is. It’s his nature to travel and that’s not something he can leave behind. He was born to be a tramp, and tramps don’t have homes or families they need to return to. The world itself is enough of a home and enough of a family for tramps.
For his entire life he managed to make himself believe that was enough for him. And it was, sort of. He was happy without a home or a family. And the world is his home. It really is. The world is vast and free and speaks to his soul in a way that’s unique. And traveling it, experiencing it soothes him and calms his mind in ways that nothing else can quite replicate. His journeys are important to him and they always will be.
But, by the ocean, he had wanted a proper home and a proper family to come back to, too. Even if he never admitted it, not even to himself. Even if he told himself he didn’t enough times that he almost believed it.
He almost wishes that he had realized that he had a home and a family earlier. It probably would have saved him a lot of heartache.
But he is glad that it snuck up on him. He’s glad that it happened little by little, by small changes he could justify and rationalize as they came and only run away from for a short while. He’s sure if he had pushed himself too hard or if he had fully realized what was happening to him too soon that he would have just cut ties and ran. Even if it would have broken his heart beyond repair to do so.
Now, he’s in too deep to ever even think of leaving it all behind permanently. And if he’s being honest with himself, behind the small curl of fear that claws its way into his heart at the thought of being tied down, he likes that. Because they all love him enough to let him go if that’s what he really wanted. They might put up a fight, but they would let him go. They do let him go. Every winter without fail, they say goodbye and let him leave.
He realizes that he’s okay with being tied down as long as it’s him that’s doing the tying.
And what a thorough tying he’s done.
He loves his little family and he feels unbelievably lucky. Moominmamma is the best mother a person could ever hope to ask for. Moominpappa is a great father. Little My is incredibly annoying at times but he loves her just as much. She’s like a sibling to him. Snorkmaiden and Sniff too, they’re a part of this little family he’s built for himself.
If he’s being entirely honest, the whole valley is a part of it.
They all own a little piece of his heart. He doesn’t find that he minds that. He loves them all, after all.
And Moomintroll, his dearest Moomintroll. He’s given his heart and soul and positively everything he is to Moomintroll. He loves him more than he loves the moon and the stars and the sea, more than he loves anything else.
Frankly, he’s shocked he didn’t realize the exact extent that he’s given himself over to Moomintroll. He spent months thinking almost exclusively of him and he doesn’t fully realize it until now.
Well, Snufkin does know that he is a bit dense. One doesn’t take five years to realize they’re in love when they’re not after all . So maybe he can be forgiven.
Every day with Moomintroll is a new adventure, even if they do nothing but lay in bed all day, because he’s doing it with Moomintroll. Every smile, every laugh, every moment they share is an entirely new experience.
Snufkin is familiar with everything about Moomintroll. He knows the soft feel of his fur and how it changes through the seasons. He knows the curl of every one of his smiles and the set of his face when he’s angry. He knows the sound of his heartbeat and the soft whisper of his breath. He knows what excitement and disappointment and sorrow look like on him. He knows his heart and his soul and everything he is.
And yet, and yet, he always feels as if he’s discovering something new and interesting when he’s with him. Because Moomintroll is an adventure all on his own.
Stars, Snufkin could spend the rest of his life on that adventure. Spend the rest of his days just experiencing Moomintroll.
He wants to spend the rest of his life on that adventure.
“I think you might have been right,” he finally settles on saying, remembering a quiet autumn day they spent fishing together two winters ago. He wishes he could say more. He wishes he could tell Moomintroll exactly the feeling he’s experiencing, the realization he’s facing. But he can already feel himself getting choked up from saying so little, his throat tightening and tears pricking at the corners of his eyes from the sheer amount of emotion he’s feeling--relief and affection and happiness and love . He hopes Moomintroll can hear it all in his voice.
He remembers giving his heart to the world when he was young. He remembers being stubborn about it, insisting that there was no one better he could possibly gift it to. After all, how could anything ever come close to the endless adventure the world gave him? The new experiences? The space to be himself without worry? The freedom?
He still thinks he was right. It was maybe a little premature, but giving his heart to the world was certainly the best decision he’s ever made.
“I was? What was I right about?” Moomintroll asks, sounding more amused than anything. Snufkin knows he probably isn’t making any sense, but he really can’t help it. Maybe he’ll be more articulate later. Maybe he’ll write it all down. Maybe he’ll gift Moomintroll another journal to keep next to his bed with the first one.
Snufkin loves Moomintroll like he loves forests and beaches and meadows and rivers. Like sunrises and sunsets and snowflakes. Like autumn leaves and spring flowers and summer berries. Like the sun and the moon and all the stars in the sky. Like things he’s seen thousands of times and only once all at the same time.
He loves him like he loves the world.
“Everything,” he says, because it’s true. It really is. He was right about everything that matters. It just took Snufkin a bit to figure that out.
The world may be vast, but still, impossibly, but still somehow, it’s small enough to fit perfectly in his paws.
“I can’t have been right about everything, Snufkin!” Moomintroll laughs. It’s a laugh that reminds him of babbling brooks and quiet mornings spent alone without the impending reality of social interaction and having to act appropriately hanging over his shoulder. It’s a laugh that feels like home, and for once that isn’t a terrifying thought.
And as Moomintroll launches into recounting all the times he’s been hilariously wrong about things and they share easy laughs and effortless smiles, Snufkin remembers a desperate wish he once made under the new moon.
He thinks he was right to always believe in wishes. They always seem to come true somehow, even if they take their time doing so.
This one took an especially long time, so long he had almost forgotten he even made it. He supposes that’s only right. It was an awfully big wish after all. But in any case, he thinks the wait was worth it. An eternity of waiting would be worth it. He’s just glad his wait is almost over.
He’s going to marry the world.
He’s going to marry the world and his family is going to be there to see it.