tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33552206102614242472024-03-13T11:06:15.306-07:00Mutterings from the Ash DistrictGhanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-70125950540356847122015-06-17T19:14:00.000-07:002015-06-17T19:14:47.821-07:00Play It Again<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<i>In which my friend gets into a car wreck as I drive behind her, and in which I suspect I have some kind of OCD. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
***</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
A strange day, today.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
The moment of impact replays in
my head like a GIF. White car appears as if by magic, an explosion of parts and
sound, tiny red car spins like a boomerang, watching from my window. Only later
do I realize the miracle that my own car wasn’t hit – by all accounts, it
should have been. Maybe there really was some kind of magic in the air.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Said to myself clearly: Okay. My
friend has been in a car accident twenty feet from me. What do I do now? Pull
over carefully. Turn on blinkers – check. Get out phone. Dial 911. Dialed, didn’t
press call. Too busy.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Other woman had gotten out of the
white car, standing on the sidewalk. I asked, Are you hurt? No, she said,
shaken, dazed, sad in the face.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Good. Sit down.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
I ran to the red car, in pieces.
Nothing visible through the windows except airbags and smoke. Smoke from the
airbags? I think so.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Never asked myself, What will I
see? Just had to get the door open.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Opened the door. Called her name.
She moved a little, made some noise. I crouched down, lifted the airbag. Are
you okay? Stupid question. She mumbled something incoherent. She said, I didn’t
even see her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Another woman on the phone
already with police, doing a better job than I. Glad she was here. A man
stopped, not a runner, but looked like one. Helpful. Some people care.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Stayed with her, crouched down,
hand on her arm. Not sure if comforting, but had to do something. Told her
paramedics were coming, not to worry. Told her who I was. Not sure if she knew
who I was.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
It was barely raining. I wanted
it to be the other woman’s fault, but it was neither, and both. She was so sad,
shocked on the sidewalk in her skirt and heels, on her way to work. Shiny white
car, quarter panel blown in. Black plastic parts and diamond headlights
sparkling along the road. License plate and black honeycomb grill in the grass,
like a joke. White car leaking brown fluid into the road. Looks like cocoa.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
They’re coming. They’re on their
way. Airbags smoking, car stank of smoke.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
They came quickly. Cut her out of
her seatbelt. Cut the airbags away. Ambulance wailing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Told the officers what happened.
They were polite, professional, let us go. I could do nothing more for her, so
I went. I was only six minutes late for work. The other woman mumbled <i>Sorry</i> as we
went, as though she was inconveniencing us. I felt sorry for her, but had
nothing for her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
I feared for my friend, but more
than that, I kept thinking – that would have been me. That should have been me.
She took my place. She took my place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
When I was younger, lightning
struck the house next door during a bad thunderstorm. We ran outside to see
flames licking across the roof. Flames in the rain. The same storm flooded our
basement. I kept picturing the lightning arcing towards out house and at the
last minute changing its mind, leaping to the gables next door. It should have
been us. They took our place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Makes a girl feel like she’s bad
luck or something.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Over and over it plays, smash,
smash, smash. It wasn’t my accident, for some reason. But I remember. I
remember everything. If I forget, something bad might happen. To me, to someone
I love.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Play it again. Maybe it will make
some sense.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Later on I try to normalize the
day. It wasn’t, after all, my accident. Angry cats became loving, gazing up at
me with the slow-blink of understanding. Angry dogs submitted to being held.
Boss brought doughnuts to try and lighten the mood. Smooth the wrinkles, stifle
the tears. It wasn’t, after all, your accident.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Text my husband to be careful on
the road with our son. The usual post-traumatic appreciation of the briefness
and fragility of life. He never responded. Probably for the best.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
I was so upset I almost prayed.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
I will not fear; fear is the
mind-killer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
Play it again, I can’t forget
this. It’s my job to remember.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
All these women I idolize – my heroes
from games, from books and stories – would they have been so upset by a simple
car wreck? What would they have done? What Would Hawke Do? What Would Shepherd
Do?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
They are no help to me now. I
want to be somewhere imagined… not recalled.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
It plays on, and it’s time to let
it go. Or rather, relegate to long-term storage, because forgetting doesn’t
happen to me.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
I failed. I couldn’t normalize
anything. I couldn’t help. I could only watch, dumb, mute, hands wringing
themselves. <o:p></o:p></div>
Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-55105108304718469512014-03-24T18:36:00.000-07:002014-03-24T18:36:36.463-07:00One Score and Ten<i>Do you feel old yet?</i><br />
<br />
Every year. Every damn year, on my birthday, without fail.<br />
<br />
Well, let's see. Do I feel more exhausted? Sure. Fatter? Oh yeah. Increasingly disconnected with those around me? Definitely. Less inclined to fight back when pushed? Unfortunately, yes. If those things contribute to the aging process, then yes, of course I feel old. I've felt old since... well, is it possible to be born old?<br />
<br />
In a way, it's a little unfair, this being born old. Young people are so <i>fresh</i>, so <i>vivacious</i>, so <i>hungry</i>... even when I was young in years, I was always looking for the calm place, the still place. I don't like surprises, or being shaken up overmuch. No adventure for me... though it looks beautiful from a distance. A friend once asked me at a sleepover what I wanted to be when I got older. After staring at her ceiling in the semi-dark for a minute, I answered with complete seriousness that I wanted to be a pirate. She gasped and said disapprovingly that pirates were godless. I was speechless. I had never thought about it that way. I mumbled something about "fun," I think, and changed the subject. It was impossible for me, at that moment, to describe that I didn't care one sterling shite about the relative godliness of pirates; it was the sheer lack of tether, the freedom of being on the ocean, of being part of a like-minded crew, the idea of wanting something and taking it, if you were able... those were the things that appealed to me. Pirates had their own gods, filthy and vengeful gods, and I didn't care about them. I could taste the salt on my lips and feel the boat rock beneath my feet.<br />
<br />
Of course, it was a childish thing to say, and anyone who knows me knows I could never be a pirate, or anything vaguely pirate-ish. I have a hard time taking money from customers whose pets I have helped. But I don't regret what I said. Though I will always find the calm, the still, the safe, my mind will always long for the open ocean, where no man has rule. That, more than anything, makes me feel old.<br />
<br />
I think most people feel this, at least sometimes. Terry Pratchett has written about it in his Tiffany Aching series: there's the first voice, which yammers all the time, and can say some damned stupid stuff; and the second voice, which hears what the first voice says and quietly critiques. The second voice is the one that keeps us awake at night repeating everything we've done wrong. Then there is the third voice, which is the hardest to hear - it's the voice that looks at everything and brings it all into focus, as long as we're looking properly. My first voice is transparently awful, and causes me to take root like a mountain; my second voice begs to be let go, to burn like fire; my third voice, as far as I can tell, knows I'm full of it and that I'm the only one holding me back. My third voice knows I'm old at heart, and has no problem with that.<br />
<br />
I turned thirty last Friday. Three decades on this earth, not having been killed or severely maimed. I have a son, a few dogs, a lot of nasty scars, an often-decent relationship with my immediate family, a few tattoos, a hundred stories brewing inside me, a first voice that cries and whispers and keeps me still and safe, a second voice that screams and bites and berates the first, and a third voice that can't quite remember how to laugh right now, though everything is funny.<br />
<br />
Do I feel old yet? I've never felt young, so I don't know for sure, but I think - I hope - it's possible to feel old first, then young later. I'll tell you when I find the open ocean, and the mountains sink into the sea, when the roots are burned away, and the third voice remembers what laughing is like. If it takes a lifetime, I know I'll get there.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-12434818824029339592014-01-29T11:19:00.000-08:002014-01-29T11:19:39.432-08:00In the Bleak Midwinter<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the coldest winter we've had in a long time. It’s
old fashioned. It’s angry. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I step outside and ice assaults me, insinuating itself into
my nostrils and ears and behind my teeth. I have to take turns breathing
through my nose and my mouth, to prevent either from freezing too fast. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Freeze, frozen, frost, ice, snow. Whoever said it was right:
Hell is not fire, it’s ice. Ice never changes, and it hurts. Cuts like glass,
hits like a hammer. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lake is frozen over. My son asked me where all the ducks
went when the lake froze. I told him they went to the Caribbean on a duck
cruise. I don't know where they are. In my mind’s eye, they’re just beneath the surface of the ice,
wings and little orange feet all tucked up tight, eyes open, waiting, waiting.
They’re all belly-up, and facing the same direction.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And, like an afterthought to the cold, my grandmother died
last week, after a long and painful battle with dementia and a mob of other
health problems. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want to be honest. For me, she died a long time ago. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
***</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The song that runs in circles in my head these days is Holst’s version of “In the Bleak Midwinter,” which seems appropriate, but I wish it wouldn't,
simply because the melody is delicate and beautiful, and it’s not for you. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You were a stranger to me, though whenever I look in the
mirror I see two things: your face, and the face of my father, your son. I
should know these parts, these familiar parts – the story behind them should be
our story - but instead, I am a copy. Yours is a story I will never hear, and
mine is a story you were never interested in hearing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This should not be about me, and I recognize this. At the
same time, though, when has death been for anyone but the living? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Your life was hard. Harder than I’ll ever know: young marriage,
childbirth, poverty, drunkenness, and a certain stubborn hatefulness that you
always seemed to carry on your chest like a talisman. I’d like to think you
were a kind woman, in the story I’ll never know – I’d like to think you were bright
and impulsive and brave, instead of vindictive and angry. You must have laughed
– you must have smiled and been content in the story I will never know. I want
to remember the woman who might have been, instead of the woman who was. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wrote this five years ago after visiting you: <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>She said they had
moved her to a different house while she slept. She thought she might have been
sick – she didn’t hurt, she said, but she slept all day. And when she woke, she
was in a different house. And she wanted to go home. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>She couldn’t
understand why her daughters kept insisting she was already home. She asked my
father to give her a straight answer – he didn’t. She asked him, filling the
room with awkwardness, and he made light, said as long as you’re comfortable
and can find the bathroom. She gave him a Look. She hasn’t lost that. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>She’s lived in that house for over forty years now. What house is she
living in now? </i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The repetitive young pastor said you were a determined,
strong lady for living so far beyond the doctors’ predictions. They gave you
four, five months; you lasted four years past that. Four incomprehensible,
frightened, bed-bound, terminally ill years. You knew no one, anymore – not your
own children, your own sisters and brothers, not your beloved Siamese cats, not
even yourself. The Black Dog sat at your heels and beside your bed for four
long years, as much as you tried to ignore him. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s not determination, Patricia. It’s fear. You were
afraid to let go. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know, because I would be afraid, too, deathly afraid. You
claimed that you weren't, used words of faith like little shields to deflect
the questions, but Patricia, I am your granddaughter. I am one-quarter you. I
know parts of your story without ever hearing it. We don’t like fear, but we hold
it close, almost as close as we hold our rage, and we deny that it exists. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’m happy – so happy – that you let go at last. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
***</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She would have liked the way she looked in the casket –
serene, well-dressed in a pretty pink nightgown, not gaudy or overdone. She
would not have liked being put into ground that was frozen beyond solid, but
she had no say in the matter. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The lake is frozen over. The whole world is frozen over, and
nothing moves, nothing changes. The air outside hits our lungs like a hammer,
cuts our flesh smoothly, like glass. This Hell will pass, and when spring
comes, you will have always been dead. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When I hear windchimes, I will think of you. When I say
hateful words to my son, I will hear your voice within mine. When I see the
grainy picture of the fifteen-year-old you, smiling on your wedding day, I will
believe that you were brave and brash, the way I always wanted to be, and leave
it at that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Goodbye, Patricia. Goodbye, Grandma. Go home, now. May peace
find you, and may you hold it close when it does. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-51457723670350739692013-10-03T16:16:00.000-07:002013-10-03T16:16:37.960-07:00A Stone at River's Bend<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><i>A story set in Thedas - a rich and rewarding sandbox to explore. Even if you don't know the universe, appreciate the story for what it is: a young woman saying goodbye, and leaving home to become something more than herself. All are welcome to r/r. </i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 18px;">...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The still hour before dawn’s light, when the whole world
seems to be elsewhere – no lowing or bleating of animals in the barn, no
children squealing from the house, no farmers shouting in the fields, no
Sisters chanting in the square – was called the Spirit’s Hour, at least in
Thea’s mind. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She lay in the dark in her nightgown, her face cold but her
body warm beneath the blankets. The small figure in the narrow bed beside her
stirred, whimpered, sleep-sighed – a bad dream. She put her hand out, gently,
stroked the small form back into restful slumber. She kept her eyes open,
staring at the ceiling beams, or at least at the suggestion of them in the
pitch darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Spirit’s Hour. It had a smooth, heavy feel to it, like
the stones in the Chantry floor. It felt as though the world was always this
way, beneath all the business and bustle of the day, and the thought was an odd
one: a ground state, a kind of nakedness. Thea supposed the world needed some
private time, just like anyone else. She felt a little guilty for witnessing
it, but there was no sleeping for her, not anymore. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Today was the day. They were coming. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Sprit’s Hour slid into dawn like a smooth stone into a
pond. The cock crowed in the yard, with gusto, and the world began to turn once
more. Thea sighed deeply in the cold morning air and slid from bed, shivering;
she dressed herself in the dark and stopped herself from checking the pack
she’d already checked at least a dozen times, leaving it on the floor by the
window where it had sat for days already. She tucked the blankets snugly around
the small figure still sleeping in the bed and eased herself out of the room,
tiptoeing down the narrow stairway. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her mother sat on her stool in front of the hearth in the
main room, stirring a black pot with a wooden spoon. The Spirit’s Hour had
always been her mother’s, too, and Thea kept silent out of respect for that,
but her mother turned, smiled, wiping her nose with a hanky.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Morning, Fee,” she said. “Exciting day, isn’t it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea smiled, but turned away. She could not face her mother’s
tears, not yet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They went about their morning business as usual. It seemed
the best way to go about things. After a chilly visit to the outhouse, Thea
stopped by the pump and washed one body part at a time with a wet rag, the way
she had been taught. Too much wet body at once meant illness. Back inside, she
was greeted by the snap and aroma of frying bacon. A special day, indeed, for
meat to come out in the morning – the thought almost made her mouth stop
watering. Almost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She went to the wooden chest by the wall and pulled out an
ivory comb. A single bone-white tine was missing, gone in her grandmother’s
time. She handed the comb to her mother, who took it wordlessly; Thea sat on
the stool while her mother combed her long light-brown hair, over and over, following
hand over comb, until the tangles of the night’s restless turning had been
worked free. As the bacon sizzled, her mother divided her hair and braided it
into two tight plaits – Thea kept her eyes closed as her mother finished by
winding the two braids around her head, pinning them into place. It was the
first time she had ever worn her hair up. Soon she would cut it off completely.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Smells good in here,” said a small, sleepy voice from the
stairwell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea turned, feeling the unfamiliar weight of the hair wound
about her head. She smiled. “Hello, Robin.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The skinny little boy’s sleep-creased face became serious.
“It’s Robert, Feeya.” He relented slightly. “But you can call me Robin today.
Just you. No one else.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea laughed. “I’ll pass on the warning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“And you must call me Robert in front of the Templars today.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Their mother tapped off the wooden spoon sharply on the edge
of the pot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I will,” promised Thea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Suddenly the small blonde boy was lifted high into the air,
squealing; a tall man in working clothes spun him around twice, then plopped
him onto his shoulders. “Daddy!” shrieked the boy. “I dropped Argus!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Well, goodness, we can’t have that! Save him, quickly!”
thundered the man, and held tight to the boy’s legs as he bent over, causing
Robert to squeal with delight again as he reached down and grabbed the ragged
stuffed dog off the floorboards. “Have you got him? Have you got him? Hold on
tight…” and he spun him sharply in one direction, then the other, until the
little boy was laughing so hard he was turning purple, both arms wrapped around
his father’s head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Now Jor, you’re going to make him throw up. Let the poor boy
down!” chided Mother. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It made Thea’s heart glad to see her family laughing as
though nothing was wrong, as though it was just another morning. She wanted to
remember these things, but the desire to remember it made it easier to forget,
somehow, and by the time breakfast was done the only thing saw in her mind’s
eye was the mangy mabari doll sitting all akimbo on the floor, waiting to be
scooped up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” said a familiar
sarcastic voice. Thea looked up, breathing hard, resting the end of the axe on
the ground. They didn’t actually need much firewood, but it was a good
distraction, so she had been doing it for almost an hour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A head of dark, curly hair was watching her, a lanky body
leaning against the fence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“And I can’t believe you actually feel purple is your color,
Finn,” she shot back, pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The young man smiled a half-smile. “Please. The ladies love it.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea put a hand on her hip. “Maker help us all.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Worked on you, didn’t it?” The half-smile grew wider.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The axe buried itself in the block. “So did you come down
here to chat me up, or try to talk me out of it, or what? Because none of it is
working,” said Thea, frowning through her blush. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Come on,” said Finn. “Let’s take a walk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea laughed a little darkly. “That’s how you got me the last
time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Believe me, I remember. But this time, just a walk. I
promise. We won’t be able to do it again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">After a moment, Thea nodded, pulling off her leather gloves
and tossing them onto the block beside the axe. The two started down the dirt
road towards the woods.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They walked in silence for a time, falling into step beside
each other, their feet finding the old, well-worn path. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Your hair looks nice,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Thank you,” she replied.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m going to miss you,” said Finn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Meh. Only because I’m the only girl in the village stupid
enough to keep falling for your cheap lines,” Thea shrugged, watching tiny
brown birds flit through the branches above.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The young man’s gray eyes sparkled as he laughed. “Rubbish.
You’re the only one I use the cheap lines on, anymore.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea laughed again. “Glad to hear you’re settling.
Unfortunately it’s not to be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Finn picked up a thin branch from beside the path, whipped
the low-hanging leaves absently. “I wasn’t settling.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea glanced at him, then back to the trees. After a time she
said, “It’s not meant to be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You don’t have to do this,” said Finn. His smile had gone.
He was only a few months older than her, but he looked much older when he
wasn’t smiling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, I do. You know that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Don’t you think he needs you here, more?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea didn’t answer. It was an old argument, one she’d had
with herself a thousand times. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Finn pressed. “How can you protect him from some fortress a
hundred miles away, Fee? He needs you here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Morning sunlight on
pale blonde hair. “Come see, Feeya, come see what I can do!”<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Sounds like you’re just going to have to trust me, Finn,”
she said distantly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“No, what it <i>sounds
like</i> is the least well-thought-out plan since Sister Agatha decided to help
a choking man by throwing him into the mill pond,” replied Finn sharply.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Well, the mill pond <i>was</i>
frozen, and he <i>did</i> land so hard that
he spat out the prawn, so maybe we give Sister Agatha too little credit,” said
Thea reasonably.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She stopped, realizing that he had stopped and was standing a
few paces behind her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t understand this, Fee. How can you just leave him
alone?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“He won’t be alone, Finn. He’ll have mother, and father, and
you, and your father to help him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The young man stared at her, any trace of laughter gone.
“There’s only so much my father can teach him. What’s going to happen when he
grows up, Fee? When he starts becoming a man? My father says that’s when…
that’s when they can’t control it any longer.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Watch this, Fee!” A
tiny ball of flame, swirling like a phoenix feather in the air above a tiny
outstretched palm. A cry of surprise as she grabbed his arm.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’ll be a Knight by then. I’ll be able to help him.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“What are you going to do, smuggle books of theory back to
him? Hide a tutor under your breastplate? I know you hate the Circle, but there
must be a better way of keeping Robin safe.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t hate the Circle, Finn. But he can’t go there.
Children who go to the Circle might as well be dead. And you… your father did
everything he could, but you know how many my mother lost. That my mother has
any smiles left in her is a miracle.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Finn looked at the ground, running a hand through his dark
curls. Eleven years and much loss had passed between Thea and her little
brother. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I can’t do that to them,” Thea went on. “He’s the last
Westley.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He smiled a little crookedly. “That’s a little old-fashioned,
don’t you think?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She laughed, sadness running through the sound like ore in
stone. “Maybe. But how would you feel if you were the last of your line?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I am,” he laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“But you won’t always be. You’ll find a nice young girl who
loves cheap pickup lines and the color purple, and you’ll have lots of
obnoxiously smart-arsed little babies. You’ll have a summer wedding, and a
house with a porch, and two dogs. I can see it. It’s all very idyllic.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He gave her a dry look. “So they take seers in the Templars,
now, do they?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She went on. “The dogs’ names will be Fidget and Hubert.
Fidget will have a housetraining problem, and Hubert won’t stop humping the
guests’ legs. Just like his master.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He laughed, and she was glad to hear the old joy in the sound.
They began walking again. “I’m not so sure about that. I was considering
joining the Chantry,” he said casually.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh Maker, Finn, you couldn’t keep yourself from women if you
wore a spiked chastity belt.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I will refrain from reminding you that some women like that
kind of thing, and instead insist that I am, in fact, quite <i>strongly</i> considering it. I can do some
good. Maybe travel.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Doesn’t your father need your help at the clinic?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Finn nodded. “I can study here under the Revered Mother for a
few years. Then we’ll see. One day at a time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She shook her head, amused. “And the women?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Like I said, one day at a time.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> They had reached the
hawthorn tree by the bend in the river.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea smirked. “So that’s your game, is it?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The dark-haired young man was the picture of innocence. “I
have no idea to what the young lady is referring. The tree is simply a lovely
place to take in the scenic vista.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“So the fact that it’s where we –“<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Madam! I have a reputation to uphold!” he said with mock
indignity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m sure you do a lot of upholding around here, you
blighter!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Blighter! Madam, I am a perfect gentleman!” he roared, and
gave chase. She ran from him, laughing wickedly. It was an old game, played for
many years, though the overtones had certainly shifted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m sorry, Feeya, I’m
sorry, I never meant to hurt you, I just wanted to show you,” he babbled, tears
running like two rivers from his blue eyes. She could barely feel her own tears
as she stared at her hand, at the blackened flesh still curling up. Through her
shock, she was already making up a story – cooking grease, hot iron pots, too
close to the fire. <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He caught her by the side of the river, hoisted her kicking
over his shoulder. “Thou art mine, Ser Theodora, and thou shalt like it!” he
boomed over the water. Then, less boomingly, “Ooof… you’ve been chopping too
much wood, lately, my lady. Methinks you have put on muscle.” He put her down,
rubbing his shoulder, grinning. His right hand lingered on her left, on the
scars, or maybe it only felt like it did. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She smiled hugely, breathing hard. “Methinks ‘tis true, for
observe, Serrah!” and without warning seized him by the arm and thigh and
lifted him easily on her shoulders. He shouted various epithets while she
jumped nimbly to a stone in the river, then to another, and another, laughing.
Once back on the bank, she dumped him unceremoniously under the hawthorn tree,
where he sat trying to catch his breath and failing due to excessive laughter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I always did… have a weakness for… women who could haul me about…
like a feed sack,” he gasped.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea leaned on her knees. “You’re a heavy little blighter,”
she laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He drew his knees up to his chest and looked up at her, still
grinning from ear to ear. “This is how I will remember you,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her smile faded a little, and after a moment she stood up
straight. “We should get back,” she said. “I don’t want the Templars to think
I’ve run away.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They followed the path back to the fence where she’d found
him. She wished she had a greater sense of drama, because now seemed the moment
for something dramatic. Nothing came to her, so to hide her sudden tears she
turned to walk away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Finn reached out and caught her left hand in his right, and
squeezed. She squeezed back. It may have been a promise, a declaration, a dramatic
move, she wasn’t certain. She had no sense for that sort of thing. But she
squeezed back, as hard as she could. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated, and tried
to touch her hand. She pulled away slightly, instinctively. His eyes pleaded
with her as he looked up from the floor. Without words, they begged: Are you
scared of me, Feeya?<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She watched him for a few steps, making his way towards the
village, staring at the ground as he went, as he often did, his shoulders
flexing as he swung the whippy branch back and forth along the hedge. For a
moment she lost herself in a thought of what might have been – warm summer
nights, weddings, a house with a porch – and then she let it go, a feather in
the breeze. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea was in the barn saying goodbye to the goats when she
noticed Robin standing behind her, moving dirt around with the toe of his shoe.
She waited for him to speak, half-turned, her hand still stroking the goat’s
cowlick between the horns. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He didn’t speak. After a time, he walked up slowly beside her
and leaned against her, putting his head against her hip, turning his face towards
her. His arms folded against her leg, one hand against his own cheek, the other
picking at the seam in her leggings. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her right hand lifted, stroked his soft, baby-blond hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I love you so much,” he said, his voice muffled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">For him, she thought to herself as tears flowed from between
closed lids. For this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Three riders approached shortly after the last of the mid-day
bells rang out from the village.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">There were two Templars, both older men, one dark-bearded,
one bald as a squash. Across both of their chests shone the flaming sword
insignia of their order. The Revered Mother rode between them on a pony,
looking positively overjoyed. She had not had the pleasure of entertaining
recruiting Templars in many years, and at age ninety-two, she might not again.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea stood by the gate with her mother and father. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Joran Westley?” said the bearded rider as the mounts slowed
to a halt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her father saluted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A soldier, I see. Thank you for your service to the Free
Marches, serah. My father was also in the service.” The Templars dismounted,
their light riding armor jangling and gleaming in the sun. “I am Ser Hausman,
and this is Ser Gilliam.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The gentlemen are Knights of the Starkhaven Circle,”
supplied Mother Gertra as Ser Gilliam gamely helped her down from her pony. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The bearded Templar, Ser Hausman, nodded at Thea. “And you
must be our potential recruit. What is your full name, girl?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Theodora Ilsabetta Westley, ser.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A solid enough name, to be sure,” said the Templar.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Mother spoke up. “Please come in, good sers. I have tea
almost ready. I’m sure you’re eager to sit on something that doesn’t jostle.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The bald Templar, Ser Gilliam, laughed heartily. “A wise
woman.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Thank you, goodwife,” said Ser Hausman seriously. “It will
be a good opportunity to begin the questioning.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They entered the house. “And this is my brother <i>Robert</i>,” said Thea. The small figure by
the fire rose and stood to attention. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Gilliam chuckled again. “Two soldiers in this family, I
say! And you, the most fearsome of the lot, I’d wager. How old are ye, Messere
Robert? Five and twenty? Five and thirty?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m seven, ser,” answered Robin proudly, his thin little chest
puffed out like a pigeon’s. “And I’m not a soldier yet, ser, but maybe one day
I will be.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A lucky day that will be for Starkhaven’s army, serah,”
smiled Ser Gilliam. Thea’s mother smiled gratefully at him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Now Robert, it’s time to be a good boy, and run up to your
room and play. We must talk,” said Father. The small figure disappeared up the
stairs in a flurry of knees and elbows. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Seats were eased into; cups of hot tea were handed around to
general murmurs of appreciation. Thea remained standing in the center of the
room, feeling like a horse at auction, which, in a way, she was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Do you believe in the maker, Theodora?” asked Ser Hausman
suddenly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea looked directly into the Knight’s hooded brown eyes. “I
do, ser,” she said.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Who sponsors this young woman?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I do, Ser Knight,” said the Revered Mother proudly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Has she been confirmed in the Maker’s sight?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“She has,” supplied Mother Gertra, reveling in her role.
“These seven years.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Many are those who wander in sin,” began Ser Hausman, his
eyes still on Thea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She continued the verse without hesitation. “Despairing that
they are lost forever; but the one who repents, who has faith unshaken by the
darkness of the world, and boasts not, nor gloats over the misfortunes of the
weak, but takes delight in the Maker's law and creations, she shall know the
peace of the Maker's benediction.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The bearded man laughed, taking a drink of his tea. “Well
done. That one’s a bit obscure. But tell me – indulge me, really – recite your
favorite verse, if you would.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea clasped her hands together, covering her left hand with
her right. She began to speak, words that she had whispered to herself and to
her brother in the darkness of many anguished nights. “Though all before me is
shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the
drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness, nor death either, in
the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall ever be lost.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Gilliam smiled appreciatively. Ser Hausman raised an
eyebrow. “The Canticle of Trials. Interesting. Why that particular passage,
Theodora?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea took a deep breath. “Because, ser,” she said, keeping
her voice as steady as she could, “it’s easy to forget about the light when the
darkness closes in. And there is so much darkness. But we must always hope – we
must cling to it, ser, and keep the hope close, or the darkness will take us.
We must fight for the light. I must always fight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“As a Templar, you must give your life to the Chantry and to
the service thereof, forever. Do you understand?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, ser.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“As a Templar, you will train hard, and become proficient
with weaponry. It is a grueling life. Do you understand?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, ser. I have… already a little skill.” She motioned to
her father’s old sword and shield, emblazoned with the red and black heraldry
of Starkhaven, hanging on the wall above the hearth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Does the scarring on your left hand affect your
performance?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“No, ser.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“As a Templar, you will be expected to take life when
necessary. You will witness horrors beyond your imagining. You will be called
upon to punish those who misuse magic. You will be forever vigilant to the
presence of mages, apostates and maleficar, and you will do everything in your
power to do as the Chantry demands. Do you understand?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I… I do, ser,” she said, driving the tremor from her voice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Hausman leaned towards her, steepling his fingers, his
dark eyes sharp. “I say again: as a Templar, you must give your life to the
Chantry and the service thereof, do you understand?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The young woman took a deep breath, let her hands drop. “I
understand, ser, that I will become one and of the Chantry, and none but the
Maker will guide my heart and deeds. Magic exists to serve man, and never to
rule over him; I will exist to serve the Chantry, and the word of the Maker
embodied therein. I will hold my faith like a flame against the dark, ser.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Her mother turned away, towards the fire.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In the depths of Thea’s heart, the thought bloomed: if I repeat
these words often enough, I will begin to believe them. I <i>want</i> to believe them. I <i>must</i>
believe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Templars seemed satisfied. “Very good,” said Ser Hausman,
rising. “Now, if there is a private space we might make use of, preferably
enclosed…?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh, er, will the barn do?” supplied Father, still a little
caught up in the recent exchange. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Gilliam stood as well, leaving his cup on the arm of his
chair. “That will suffice. Theodora, Reverend Mother, if you please. Madame and
Messere, please remain here. We will return shortly.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Leaving her mother and father behind as she led the way to
the barn felt strange, but not as strange as Mother Gertra’s thin hand on her
shoulder as she whispered loudly, “You’ll make a wonderful Templar, my dear.
Such armor!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea hauled open the door, motioned the group inside.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, this will do,” said Ser Hausman critically.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Why the barn, ser?” asked Thea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“We are going to conduct a test, most basically designed,
really,” said Ser Gilliam, shifting a wooden wheelbarrow out of the way.
“Simply to determine your degree of connection to the Fade.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea nodded.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Please stand there. Hold still.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She moved into the open space in the center of the barn, and
held still. A goat bleated a half-hearted complaint, watching with one eye. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Hausman glanced at his companion, who nodded slightly.
Ser Hausman drew his sword, held it flat before his face. He held very still,
took several deep breaths, and lifted his left hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea felt a wave of heaviness roll over her, a sense of
pressure, but nothing more. She barely wavered. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The bearded Templar lowered his hand and his sword, smiling
slightly. The Reverend Mother audibly let out a sigh of relief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Alright, well, that’s that,” said Ser Gilliam.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea looked from one man to the other. “That was the test?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Indeed,” said Ser Hausman. “If you were a mage with a strong
connection to the Fade, you’d be on the ground screaming for mercy right now.”
His smile increased, he winked at her. “One day, if you work at it, you’ll be
able to do that, as well.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She looked at the bearded Templar. “Yes, ser. I will work
hard.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Again, on the way back to the house, Mother Gertra’s voice in
her ear: “What a Templar you’ll make, my dear! Blessed Andraste, how exciting
for you! You must promise to write, my
dear!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They had already tied her pack to the back of one of the
horses by the time she pulled on her cloak and said goodbye to everyone with
kisses and embraces. It was only a show. The real goodbyes had already been
said, with eyes and silences. Robin looked as though he wanted to say
something, shout something really, but she kissed him into quiet, promising
that she would see him again before he knew it. She had no idea if it was true
or not. She hoped it was. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Gilliam held out his gloved hand. “Up you go, then,” he
said kindly. She allowed herself to be pulled up, swung her leg over the rear
of the horse, settled in behind the man, feeling his armor move against her
front. She could smell him – leather, armor polish, soap, something vaguely
metallic. Not unpleasant by any means, but alien to her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">They did not linger. She glanced behind her only once, and
immediately regretted doing so. She buried the image of her family huddling
together by the hedge, Robin in her father’s arms, looking the other way down
the road, and focused on the gentle jostling of the horse beneath her, the
sound of hooves thumping on the packed earth, the tiny dents and scratches in
Ser Gilliam’s plate armor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“We’ll overnight in the next village,” said Ser Hausman. “Then
it’s on to Lesille. We’ve another recruit to pick up there. After that,
Starkhaven. Ever been, girl?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea shook her head. “No, ser.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“A bit full of itself, really,” said Ser Gilliam,
thoughtfully. “But you won’t be there for long. You’ll be divided into groups,
and sent to training refuges all over the Marches. I hope for your sake you
don’t get the one outside Ostwick – Owl’s Roost, they called it. That’s where I
was, more years ago than I care to count. The food was terrible.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Owl’s Roost burned down ten years ago, Gilliam. Come now,
you recall.” Ser Hausman had taken a pipe out of a saddlebag, pulled off a
riding glove, and was carefully thumbing dark tobacco into the bowl. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh, that’s right. Well, the food was terrible.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The sun inched nearer to the treeline, and Thea lost herself
in the thump-clump of hooves. The smoke from Ser Hausman’s pipe was dark and
bittersweet, with a coppery edge. <i>There
is no darkness, nor death either, in the Maker’s light,</i> she repeated to
herself. <i>No darkness, nor death either.
Nothing that He has wrought will ever be lost.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea leaned gently against Ser Gilliam’s armor. Under her
cloak, she ran the fingers of her right hand over the time-smoothed scars on
her left, saw a glimpse of baby-blonde hair in her mind’s eye, golden in
morning sunlight. Tears filling bright blue eyes, overflowing down round
cheeks. The smell of burning flesh. <i>I’m
sorry, Feeya, I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt you, I just wanted to show you…</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Knight glanced over his shoulder at her. “Anxious, girl?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Are you scared of me,
Feeya? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Thea leaned back, stared upwards into the purple sky, at the young
stars winking their ciphers at her. It was the secret sister of the Spirit’s Hour,
when the world, while still turning, seemed quiet and brimming with something
akin to hope, smooth and warm as a stone by a riverbend on a summer’s evening. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“No, ser,” she said firmly. “I’m not afraid.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-46955387251374721882013-09-03T20:02:00.000-07:002013-09-03T20:02:18.672-07:00The Thinking ManA poem, originally titled "Modern Philosopher." Written a while back, but re-read it tonight and made me smile. I was so young and full of hope... *tear*<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I</span>n his sway, holding
tight to the point <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which must be made now at any expense, he grits out his
words <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And feels them bumping stony down paths of other brains<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Landslides, mudslides, pebbles in a field, stationary and
irrelevant. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Absently he wonders how many trees he can blow down with his
hot breath of apathy,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This hot air of pompitude and attitude of mischarity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He wonders, among the rumblings, where he picked it up, his
habits of <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ignorance and self-loathing. But he knows he’s not stupid, just
hateful and <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ruined; he considers the gun, for whom, he’s uncertain, but
in the silence the thought<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Becomes as foolish and humiliating as a remark out of place,
uncalled for, offensive, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And he drops it, hot stones. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Why do these moments always last forever? Don’t they tire of
being, and give up,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And leave people like me to the next moment? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But he doesn't really care – his life is a series of these
embarrassments, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Punctuated by kind faces he frowned at and kind words he
ignored, <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This hell is familiar, and in a way he wants it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, he tells himself with a sigh, it’s all about control,
and the control I can’t have,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the control I must have; I did not ask for this desire,
but now that it’s swallowed me<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s for me to live up to. Simple, really. It’s a matter of
things becoming other things,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And People becoming Ideas. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The moment luxuriates, and he considers death, a humorous
and bloated bully<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Which he has observed from a distance, laughing at himself
for doing so. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What if, he wonders, these minds should die, and I should be
left here to<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Dig out their ideas alone? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if the bones I find hide no gold?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What if everything I've thought and they've thought has been
thought before<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
By some sordid poet or philosopher or garbage man,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And everything that I use to impress myself on the world is
an old tool, grossly unoriginal,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And stinking of overuse?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well? And where would I stand? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Quickly he asks himself to try to be happy; he’s sure other
people manage it, and he’s tired <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of trying so hard. <i>Sois
content</i>, he reminds himself, comforted by the logic of <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Other languages, ones that sit like field pebbles on the tongue. The sound of it<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Echoes in the hollows left by other minds crashing downward,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Wax-melty, and stunned by ocean. Anyone pressing an ear to
the never-ending moment</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Could make out waves, and one man’s raving voice. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-32098569828088626962012-08-07T18:40:00.000-07:002012-08-07T18:40:57.039-07:00Still<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcx7dcBhGYdQ_pnpm6Im1czS1zaDK5yHZ47bB71TFIEczlUIdGlPzeWOG4UQfQrxYQ70MM0vYBx0Qk04EQAFDfqdKB94uLZXpUT5ihgPCAdy1MX7ZfR7QWx4XGX2x0G4dUikbefkzPDd02/s1600/Le+Passage+Kay+Sage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcx7dcBhGYdQ_pnpm6Im1czS1zaDK5yHZ47bB71TFIEczlUIdGlPzeWOG4UQfQrxYQ70MM0vYBx0Qk04EQAFDfqdKB94uLZXpUT5ihgPCAdy1MX7ZfR7QWx4XGX2x0G4dUikbefkzPDd02/s1600/Le+Passage+Kay+Sage.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Le Passage - Kay Sage, 1956</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<i>When it finally happened, all was very still. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
I watched the doe run from across
the distant road, through the trees, bounding across the grass towards the yard
where I stood with the dog on the end of the sliplead. The dog hadn’t seen her;
or maybe he had, but didn’t care. He’s fairly inscrutable. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Hooves made a careless
thumping sound as she leaped across the twilight field, apparently heading for
the University of Phoenix building, perhaps to pursue a certification in phlebotomy. Though I was standing in a wide swathe of light, she
hadn’t noticed me, hadn’t noticed the dog, and she moved erratically, like a
child entertaining itself. You could practically hear her humming, off-key and
unthinking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
When she finally saw us, she was
only ten feet away on the other side of the iron fence. She stopped,
did her very best impression of a lawn statue, as deer will do, and regarded us
with a quivering black eye. I held very still and tried to look non-threatening,
because I’m that kind of pathetic person. She seemed less than convinced. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
I looked down. The dog glanced up
at me, over at the deer, then returned to sniffing some other dog’s feces.
Priorities, I suppose. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
I looked back up at the deer, or
rather, the deer’s white backside, as the deer had turned and fled back the way
she’d come, disappearing between the soft pines across the road. That <i>bitch</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
This deer obviously has no mythic
sensibilities, no romance, I grumbled to myself. I’d have liked a little animal
communication moment; a glance that told me she wasn’t afraid, that she knew
who I was. As someone who takes care of animals for a living, I felt I was owed
at least that much. Didn’t this deer realize who I was? I have a connection,
dammit! I was even a Wiccan for, like, two years, which is a really long time
for someone with any semblance of sense! <i>I have mad cat-wrangling skills!</i> Do
you not know these things, random deer who was taken by surprise by my
presence? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Of course, she never came back,
instead choosing to scale the hill and trek across the backyard lawns of houses in the kind of
neighborhood where they don’t allow you to put up a fence. Maybe she made her
way to the golf course up there, and left her adorable little deer droppings
all over the twelfth hole. The one with the dog leg. Hah. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Well, that was a waste, I thought
as I took the dog back inside (he’d grown bored of poop-sniffing). That could
have been an omen, could have been a sign. Instead it was nothing. Ridiculous
<i>nothing</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Even nothing is <i>something</i>, I reasoned. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Except, by definition, it isn’t,
I countered. Must everything have a deeper meaning? Can’t some things just <i>be</i>? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
By virtue of existing and
occurring, all things must mean something. Right? In that sense – nothing is
indeed something. But not necessarily a very <i>important</i> something. Do you see?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
… Brain, we’re going to have to
have a heart-to-heart here very soon. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Night dropped down on me like a cheap chiffon scarf: softly, quietly, with sparkles. The deer was long gone, as
were most right-thinking human beings. Crickets creaked. Cicadas hissed at
volume, seemingly unaware that their last call had passed long ago. Moths
bumped blindly into my face as I closed the door, turned on the alarm, and
wandered to my car. The whiff of woodsmoke in the air was bizarrely out of
place in this suburban flatland, but it evoked distant memories of mountains
and pine forests and clear lakes that may or may not be mythical, and I was
grateful for it. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Grateful for inscrutable dogs,
grateful for darkness, grateful for drives home alone along winding roads. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
…<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
When it finally happens, all
becomes very still. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
The great turning over; the great
shedding; the greatest loss. One emerges changed, new, but necessarily
lessened; for one can never completely reclaim what was lost. Poets and other
malcontents make much of the broken heart, the broken mind, or the broken
spirit; just as cutting is the closed eye, or the closed hand, or the turned
shoulder. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<i>Inhale; exhale. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Deer in the purple evening light.
Moths like ashes in your mouth. The stink of woodfire curling along the
asphalt. The burn in your belly of too many arguments, too many dirty looks,
too many nights sleeping head to toe, staring at the wall. All omens, all
nothing, all greater than the sum of the parts. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">
Open your eye, your hand, and
drive the dark and winding road road; hope for the grace to see the right moment as it
approaches, watch as it passes, and recognize it for what it was as it grows
smaller in your rearview. An omen, a spirit, nothing at all. <o:p></o:p></div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-75353695772859571462012-05-15T17:51:00.000-07:002012-05-15T19:01:37.977-07:00The Choice; or, Two Doors Stood in the Desert<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Two doors stood in the
desert, side by side. Pale sand had drifted and mounded on the thresholds and
settled gently on the hinges. <span style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not doors<i> to</i> anywhere; just doors, plain and of average door height, standing
upright in the sand, equal parts bizarre and unassuming.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harden stood before the two
doors, looking from one to the other. Something cicada-like and unseen buzzed
in the air. His exhausted body throbbed with the heat inside his armor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He sighed, wiped the sweat from
his forehead with his equally sweaty hand, and muttered to himself, “Really?” <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Always riddles. He didn’t join
up with the Guild to solve riddles. See, <i>this</i>
is why you always travel in a well-balanced group – someone to solve the riddles,
someone to slap poultices on wounds, someone to swing a sword, etcetera.
Everyone in their place. And <i>Harden’s</i>
place was to swing the sword – honest bloody steel. Nothing mystical about a
blade, most of the time, anyway. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But things don’t always work out
to be ideal. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lenzo, the silver-tongue with a
creepy penchant for sneaking around in the shadows sniping folks with poisoned
crossbow bolts, had been incapacitated just two weeks into their journey.
Sneaking around in the shadows with no armor on isn’t such a great plan when
fighting a pack of werewolves, who, it turns out, can see in the dark, and are,
<i>it turns out</i>, immune to most poisons.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The dwarven cleric, hilariously
enough, had found a new calling at the White Crane, the best bordello this side
of the Winders: “ministering to the young ladies,” he’d said, glassy-eyed. Ministering,
indeed. It would have been nice to have Curolo around last week when Harden’s
knee had taken a head-butt from a particularly short and nasty goblin. The
twinging was almost unbearable when it rained. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thankfully, the insufferable
elven mage had stormed off several days ago, arcane jewelry rattling furiously,
insisting she was far, far too talented for this kind of pissant work. Even her
– <i>ahem</i> – considerable assets and the
fact that she wore only what appeared to be a few carefully-arranged
rhinestones were not enough to make up for her godsawful attitude. Also, she
had a face you could chop wood with and a mouth like a cat’s bottom. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So now Harden traveled alone.
He went carefully, hoarding health poultices and information as he went; every
night before he slept, he pulled out a many-folded piece of paper, carefully
unfolded it, read his orders a few times, then re-folded the paper and replaced
it in his pack. He spoke to innkeepers and merchants, who always seemed to be
in the know; he was slowly learning how to suppress his natural awkwardness,
and it was amazing how much people told you if you weren’t awkward. He supposed
that was what “charisma” was all about. He’d never had to worry about that kind
of thing before; a large, sharp weapon had always had its own special kind of
charisma. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But charisma couldn’t help you
solve riddles, he’d discovered. It may help you solve the one who <i>asked</i> the riddle… but not all riddles
were actually asked; some, like the doors, simply <i>were</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The desert had been a welcome
respite from dealing with people, but desert creatures were hard to kill, and
this journey was really starting to wear. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Keep going for Cass, he would
repeat to himself after every exhausting battle, when he was sitting on a rock
panting and spitting blood, exploring his wounds with a non-broken finger. Keep
going for the baby. It was his thin mantra, the driftwood that buoyed him up
just enough. So he’d bind his broken fingers together, swig a foul-tasting
tincture, hammer the largest dents out of his armor and check the bodies for
anything of value before moving on, on to the next town, the next fight, the
next bloody gods-damned riddle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knowing what he would see, but
unable to stop himself, he looked around to the back of the doors.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yep. Doors from nowhere to
nowhere. That’s lovely. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And where… ah, yes, there it
is. The inscription. I hope it doesn’t rhyme. I can’t stand any more bad
poetry. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It didn’t rhyme. It read: <i>“Traveler, be it known: choose one door, and
only one. What lies beyond the other, you will never know; that alone is the
price of passage.”</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harden was rather taken aback.
Was that all? Choose one, go through, that’s it? No enormous, angry gelatinous
cubes? No pits of spikes and alligators? The only unpleasant thing that could
happen to you is that you’d never get to know what was beyond the other door?
Wasn’t that what people did every day, essentially, if you wanted to get
philosophical about it?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He shrugged, shouldered his pack,
and reached for the nearest door’s handle. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He hesitated. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was nothing in the
inscription about certain doom, true, and usually these things made themselves
known (why go to the trouble, after all, and not advertise?), but… who was to
say what, exactly, was through the doors? He hadn’t gotten this far without
being careful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After a moment’s thought, he
pulled out the well-read set of orders and scanned them again. No help there.
He frowned, stifled the suspicion that his employer was a creepy sadistic
bastard who hadn’t stepped foot out of doors in fifty years, and pushed his
blonde hair back off his forehead. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right, well, let’s see what we
can see. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He scanned both of the doors
with care, running his hands over every surface, looking for the smallest hint
as to what lay beyond. Both were completely, frustratingly smooth wood, carved
with decorative squares; the handles were iron or some similar metal, a bit
tarnished, but otherwise unremarkable. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There were no keyholes of
course, but Harden did get down on his hands and knees and scoop the sand away
from the thresholds, trying to get a glimpse underneath. His squinting eyes
were met only with darkness. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A little embarrassed, and not
sure why, he put his nose to the gap and sniffed. He pulled back, coughing.
Just sand. Stings when you breathe it in. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He sat back on his heels,
wiping his nose on his sleeve. Nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let’s think about this. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Say I pick a door. The door on
the right, for argument’s sake, and through that door lies, say, a beach that
borders a lagoon wherein lives something with lots of rage and too many
tentacles for its own good. That’s all fine and good. What if, then, though the
<i>other</i> door, there was a path through
a pleasant wood leading, after a nice little jog, directly to the tower
containing the particular artifact after which his employer was lusting. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I would never know, having
chosen the other door. The one with the tentacle monster. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wondered if there was some
way to cheat the system. Probably not. He could try to open both doors at
exactly the same time… nope, of course not. Just too far apart for both handles
to be reached by someone standing in the middle and reaching both arms out as
far as they could go. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harden’s arms dropped sheepishly
to his sides, discomfited by the silly show they’d just taken part in, and he
stood there, sweat dripping into his underpants.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 22.5pt;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 115%; text-indent: 22.5pt;">What if I open one door, but don’t
go through it? Ah… I know. Then the other one will open to show only the sand
behind it. That’s how these things go. Putting a hand on the knob and turning
it will signify that the choice was made – there can be no opening and closing.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well then, what the hell does
it matter which door I choose? Harden shrugged for his own benefit, and that of
his cresting frustration. If there’s no way to know where either door leads,
and I can only choose one, why does it bloody matter? I mean, there may as well
be only one door. Why does the choice even exist? Simply to drive someone like
me completely bonkers? If an obnoxious enchanted riddle door falls in the
desert because an angry, tired swordsman has kicked it over, does anyone give a
small turd? And does said swordsman still get paid?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s not a riddle, it’s a
bloody menace, Harden thought to himself darkly, glaring. He crossed his arms,
pinched the bridge of his nose, took a deep breath and scoured his memory for
anything that may be useful. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">His brain settled on a
conversation he’d had with his companions at a filthy black-kettle tavern a few
weeks ago, shortly before the werewolf incident. He’d just found a new sword,
enchanted steel, a definite step up from his Guild-issue butter knife which bent
when it was yelled at, and he had bought several rounds to celebrate. Everyone
aside from Cat-Bum Axe-Face was well into it.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Have you ever thought… that we
might be going about this all wrong?” slurred Lenzo from the far side of his
mug. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harden and Curolo had glanced
at each other, then at the thief. “What are you even <i>talking</i> about?” giggled the dwarf, his bald head shiny with sweat
in the lanternlight. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Right, I mean, like, right…
hang on. I mean. Well, there’s a certain way things are done, isn’t there?”
Lenzo said, pushing his greasy black hair out of his eyes and weaving through
unfamiliar territory. “I mean, it’s like… someone tells us to do something, and
we do it.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“That’s how the Guild works,
you moron,” snapped Cat-Bum, doing her damnedest not to let her skin come into
contact with any surfaces, a difficult thing given the amount of skin that was exposed.
Her real name was Zalthea Star-Eye or some nonsense, but to Harden she would
always be Cat-Bum. “People approach the Guild with a contract, we accept. We
get paid.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Yes, thank you so much, I did
know that, in fact,” retorted Lenzo unsteadily. “I meant… I meant. Ah. I meant
that we follow the directions to a letter. Riddle this and outsmart that and
battle this and hack-and-slash that. It’s all a bit of a show, isn’t it? I
mean. Couldn’t we just ignore all those damned fire-fountains and owlbears and
sphynxes and just, you know…”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“… Go get it?” finished Harden
thoughtfully.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Yes! ‘It’ being the prize, the
inevitable object at the end of the long and wind-y road. It’s what I call the
Third Choice.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Curolo shook his head, the
braids in his beard bristling. “You’ve been thinking about this a lot, then?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lenzo shrugged his narrow
shoulders. “I, well, yeah. It’s always ‘kill this troll’ or ‘help this troll.’
It’s never ‘swing it wide to the East to avoid the troll completely and
incidentally try this great curry place that’s down that way.’ I mean, what are
they going to do? Come find us and say we’re not doing it right?”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The Third Choice. Just get the
shit done,” said Harden, with a touch of awe.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“But. But! But then what about
the <i>treasure</i>?” insisted Curolo,
hugging his stein to his chest, his face creased in inebriated concern.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The thief waved his hand. “Pah!
What treasure? It’s all random, anyway. Who can say for sure there will be
treasure? I’ll tell you where the treasure is – it’s in the purses of those
merchants who travel up and down the safe highways, in the chests in the tax
collectors’ offices in the city square, in the fat bags of the innkeepers who… er,
well, you know.” He coughed to avoid the sharp glance of the innkeeper, just
within earshot.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was a malty silence as
they all digested the thief’s words.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“But what about the glory?”
said Harden suddenly. He wasn’t sure what had made him say that – drink,
probably. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lenzo laughed raucously.
“Glory! My muscle-bound friend, there is no greater glory than to be alive to
tell your employer to kiss your sweaty arse, and that of the horse you rode
back on.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Third Choice. Harden had
scoffed at Lenzo for that. What was the Quest if not a journey, an experience,
a chance to hone one’s skills and see the world?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Gods, just a few short weeks
ago, and he had been such a <i>boy</i>. If
he had known… well, he wouldn’t be here now, that was for certain. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harden regarded the doors
before him, their shadows stretching over him in the dusty and increasingly
purple light of the desert. The sun was starting its lazy descent towards the
horizon. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A locust fluttered erratically
across the sand and settled on his left pauldron, where it rocked back and
forth a few times, regarding him with large, fractal eyes and twitchy
mandibles. He stared back at it. It defecated on him unceremoniously, then
jumped back into the breeze, disappearing over the dunes in a flurry of glassy
wings. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Bugger this for a lark,”
Harden muttered, and made the Fourth Choice.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Home was far away, but every
step took him closer to Cass, closer to the baby, closer to rainy evenings by
the fire, mornings on the farm, closer to the smell of fresh hay and the sound of scythes swishing again and again across the fields… and further
away from the desert and its infernal doors, and thus every step became just a tiny, tiny bit lighter.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He passed through the White
Crane, where Curolo was minus his trousers in the kitchen and so addled with ruby
ale that he didn’t recognize his own hand in front of his face. Harden relieved
him of his dusty alchemical supplies, selling them for better boots in the
nearby village, though he did leave behind the packets of medicinal salve that
he assumed the dwarf would be needing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> He passed the spot in the woods where they had
buried Lenzo, and found the shallow grave no longer occupied. After the initial
panic, he reasoned that scavengers were most likely to blame, but jogged out of
the woods at a healthy pace just in case, listening hard for anything vaguely
wolfish, leaving behind him at the grave seven gold coins: six to settle a
debt, and one to help pay the ferryman, the way his Gran had taught him.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He went to the Guild in the
capital, where he saw Cat-Bum arguing with another mage about something arcane
and no doubt beyond the ken of mortal man while trying to surreptitiously hike
up her flimsy jeweled bra. She did not deign to notice him. He marched up the
stairs to his contract manager, and asked politely but firmly for an address.
He made his way across town to a small, dark house, beat on the door until it
cracked open, and thrust the map and directions at the slice of pale, underdone
face that appeared, followed by some advice to get a dog, a girlfriend, and a
different hobby, preferably one out in the fresh air. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Harden then went home, hung his
sword and shield on the wall, and held his wife and daughter for a long time.
That’s where his story really begins, he would always tell people, and it was
true – Harden had many adventures over his many long years, exactly none of them
involving mysterious doors in the desert. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">
<span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Because that’s the thing about
life: the choices are all around you. You make them, they make you, round and round, passing through door after door… and in the
end, may we all be so fortunate as to make the Fourth Choice, and arrive back home in good time, with good boots on our feet and good tales in our mouths, and hang our swords and shields on the wall to gather dust. </span></span></div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-19883139454380209802012-02-26T13:29:00.000-08:002012-02-26T13:29:49.172-08:00SnakeThis strange little thing undoubtedly reveals more about me than I intended, but... oh, well. <div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div>....</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I have never been afraid of snakes. Not even when they started going in and out of the walls. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">It’s not as though there’s even a chink for them to get in and out of. They just come and go as though they own the fucking place. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I say “them” because there’s more than one, although the final count remains a mystery. Maybe there’s one that is two at the same time – I get that impression. Of one inhabiting the body of two. Of ripples in a still pond that from one angle appear to be separate, but from another reveal themselves to be just parts of one never-ending wave. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I never even understood people’s fear of snakes. Spiders? Sure, creepy little bastards. Bats? Okay. Rats? Scratchy claw hands. But snakes? Just a long tube of muscle with teeth at one end; it would sooner slither away than be caught dead by you. They eat mice very slowly and become sluggish in the cold. They can hardly be considered sentient beings. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">These snakes don’t slither away. In and out they go, just as though they own the goddamn place.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">The day I first saw one I was alone in the house, although there’s nothing so unusual about that anymore. I was standing in the middle of the dusty front room on the south side of the house, also optimistically called the music room, though no music had been played there in years and ages, since my sister had abandoned her harp to design costumes and write post-by-post Star Trek fanfics. The only sound was the ringing of silence, and then I heard it: a sigh, a long-drawn whisper, a susurrus, as of a soft cotton sheet being drawn over the edge of a table. And there it was – a long streak of mottled brown, moving effortlessly over the dentine, like a pinstriping brush. It flowed over the white woodwork in open defiance to gravity, never once pausing to look at or acknowledge me, then plunged its head into the paint and burrowed smoothly into the space behind the crown molding, leaving no scar behind it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I stared, then walked out of the room. If I could only get away from the room, I reasoned, it will never have happened. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">The next time, I was in the kitchen, alone, making dinner. The skillet was cold and empty, and I couldn’t remember what I was about to do with the wad of mustard greens in my right hand, when I heard it again: like the death rattle of the space inside a seashell. Above the sink, above the horrible gingerbread wood panel that we always swore we would change when we got the chance and never did, a colorless snake dripped from the ceiling to the counter like a blob of paint. It was an albino thing, eyes pink as rubies, like pomegranate seeds, scales translucently white, so pale that I could almost make out the pulsing arteries and veins along its length. It flicked a baby-pink tongue in my direction, then crawled into the sink, insinuating itself rather obscenely into the black hole of the drain. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I looked into the disposal, expecting to see a snake curled there – there was a rush of movement, but weather it was the snake or the disposal itself, I couldn’t tell. I put my left hand out to touch the switch for the disposal – the hand not holding the greens – but I couldn’t find it in myself to flip the switch. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">My foot moved of its own accord, and I glanced down. The albino snake had appeared from the base of the cabinets, muscling his way along the terrible gray and pink vinyl floor, tasting his way through the air, with no apparent goal in mind. (Not sure why I’m calling it “he;” this one always seemed like a male to me.) He found the large pantry cabinet, newer than the other cabinets but not by much, and slid inside, passing through the wood with no apparent difficulty. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">Suddenly my appetite was gone, and did not return. I haven’t opened the pantry since, though I know I won’t see the albino snake in there. It’s alright – I needed to lose weight anyway, right? <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">After the snakes came, I tried to leave the house to visit other people – family, mostly, like Grandma. I try to fill up the days, her voice rasps over the phone, thick with sixty years’ worth of tears – I try to fill up the days but they’re just so long. She hadn’t been the same since the doctors in the ICU split her in half over a ten-day period. She always blamed herself for not understanding sooner. When that other half died, she could still feel it, feel the death of it sucking at her, feel it trying to speak to her, but she couldn’t listen, wasn’t strong enough to. I try to fill up my days, she said again and again, but the day is so. Long. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">She’s never been alone, not in her whole life, but she’s alone now. More than alone. I can see it, but I can’t touch it.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">So I try to visit her, to chase away the alone, but the house turns and turns and keeps me from finding the door. Just like Baba Yaga’s chickenfoot cottage in the blackpine woods, this ill-placed suburban pre-fab keeps the world and I apart. Even when I get a good hold on the knob, round it spins and I look down and in my hand I hold a balled-up snake. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">Why are you doing this? I ask that question all the time, and never get an answer. The house was born mute, and never learned to speak, except in sighs, creakings, scratchings and drips. Just like you, it could never make a scene, just a pastiche. No great failure; just a series of small ones.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">The snakes come and go, just the way you think they would. Once I watched one flatten itself to no thicker than a razor blade’s width and stroke itself between the cherry floorboards, disappearing after only a minute or two of inhaling and exhaling. I never much cared for the cherrywood floors the way you did, but they don’t deserve that.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I would love to tell you about this, but the majority of you has been gone for a long, long time now. There are times, and I’ll be honest here, when I feel like crying, but then I remember how much you hated it when I cried, and I’m able to stop myself. You’d be proud. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I think the snakes have eaten the dogs. I’m <i>sure</i> they’ve eaten the cats. They were fleabags anyway – the cats, not the dogs – always begging for milk and ham when we opened the fridge, always mincing around as though they didn’t have tiny white tapeworm segments clinging to the fur of their haunches. Dead, but a sign of what was misplaced inside. The dogs, though… I do miss having them around, in spite of their barking. I remember how they made you so mad you’d have to stomp into the garage to stop yourself from kicking them. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">Shut them up! Quiet! Shut them up! <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">They were sweet, in their way. They would curl up on me, beside me when I used to sleep, all bony elbows and pointy little feet, fishy breath, black eyes and black noses, watching. I think the house spins more now that they’re gone. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">Yes, I’m certain they must have been eaten. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">My palms ache now, thinking about them. That’s where my heartache goes, into my palms, and into my throat, but it never goes out. I keep it in. You taught me that well. You’d be proud.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I stopped laying down to sleep because I was sure the snakes were crawling into one ear and out the other, laughing as they crept down my throat and out through the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet; finally, I stopped sleeping altogether, which seems to have made the world a bright and crystalline place. The darkness at the edge of my eyesight is easy to ignore. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I remember – and that seems to be all I do anymore – the black snake that haunted the campground at your brother’s trailer by the little pay lake. It always seemed to be in different spots, without having moved. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I remember the snake that curled itself around the metal pole in the garage in the desert, and froze there – how you prodded it into a box and left it on a hill of dirt in the Wayback, as we called the no-man’s-land of sagebrush and cattle skeletons beyond our backyard. It warmed to life there, and wriggled away without thanks, and then we realized we didn’t know if the snake was poisonous or not. Was it red and yellow, friendly fellow? Or kill a fellow? Red and black… well, the snake was gone now. Maybe we should have killed it while it was frozen. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">The windows don’t open in this house anymore. I can’t even see out of them. Maybe the windows are just a memory.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">Baba Yaga had a magic lamp, didn’t she? It illuminated all that was unknown. I find myself searching for this lamp in all the closets, shifting the towels and the ancient shampoo bottles and the dusty-smelling curlers in rose-printed cosmetics cases (my hair has never been long enough to hold curlers). Once we locked a cat in the linen closet for half a day – her maiowing led us to her when she was hungry enough, and though we were guilty she never forgave us. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">What was I looking for, again?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I look down to find my legs have become two snakes, thick like pythons or boa constrictors, disappearing into the ugly cherry flooring like a mangrove into the still coffee surface of a swamp. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I remember the dead green snake on the side of the road, its pink and orange guts squirted out through its genitals. You laughed at me when I pointed it out. It was rolled pale side up, belly to the sky, ready to backstroke down into the storm drain, and only doing so when the rain washed it down with the leaves. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I look up at strands of my hair growing upwards into the ceiling – long brown snakes, hanging down, waiting to catch a bird. As though there were birds living here.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I remember what you said when I mentioned I wanted to visit New Orleans – It’s filthy, you said, greasy and filthy. As though the air was oil and the people made of mud, like reverse snowmen. I never did go.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">The house spins. I wasn’t even <i>trying</i> to find the door. I stopped trying a long time ago. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">Why are you doing this? I ask. The words flow from my mouth like tiny, thin snakelings, dropping to the floor, scattering like newborns, like earthworms towards the shade.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I remember how the dogs used to love hunting snakes. They were never afraid of anything.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">In my hand, a balled-up snake. No – my hand, a balled-up snake.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 22.5pt;">I want to open my mouth wide and let out the snake in my heart, but I keep it inside. You would be so proud of me. <o:p></o:p></div></div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-1037438157975871312012-02-01T15:57:00.000-08:002012-02-01T15:57:47.287-08:00Horses, and the Smell of SnowFor those interested, this is my Dragon Age: Asunder Creative Writing Challenge entry - placed in the top five, yay! I was a bit reticent to post it prior to Bioware announcing the winners, but here it is. All are welcome to enjoy, comment, tear to bits. <div><br />
</div><div>....</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Horses, thought Martin suddenly. Horses, and the smell of snow. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He stared at the book before him, frowning, black eyes running over the same sentence again and again, snared in a memory. Around him, the Library bustled with the processes of teaching and learning, the rules of silence kept really more as guidelines; apprentices muttered to themselves, jotting down notes with one hand, turning pages with the other; groups of mages argued and bickered round and round about the minutiae of magic, never ultimately seeming to achieve anything other than mild laryngitis. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">It had been… Maker, it had been over twenty years now, since he had even been around a horse, or seen snow. Snow never came to this part of the Free Marches – too close to the ocean, and on the wrong side of the mountains for anything but clouds and constant rain. And horses were no good here: if you wanted to commit suicide in Kirkwall, they said, ride a horse: if the fall down the cliffs didn’t kill you, the horse landing on top of you certainly would. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Twenty years, and still he could smell the sweat of the beasts, feel the shifting heat of them under his hand, against his cheek, see the breath of them fountaining into the frozen winter air. He glared through the page, at the unwelcome memories, breathed deeply, and shut the book sharply. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin was a Ferelden in the Free Marches, but more than that, he was a mage. At age five he had been sent not to the Ferelden Circle of Magi at Lake Calenhad, but to Kirkwall, across the sea, for reasons unbeknownst to him. He suspected dryly that his family simply wanted as much distance between them as farmer’s money could buy. He no longer remembered his surname, like so many others in the Circle, and had long passed the point of caring. The Gallows was his home now, his fellow mages his siblings, the Chantry his mother and the Templars his ever-present father. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Self-invention, that’s what mattered here. You could become anything you wanted. Almost anything. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">So why did he feel so bloody <i>hollow?</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A flutter of turquoise movement across from him brought his attention back to the present. Faelta<i>.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin needed Faelta for everything she did, for the patience she showed him, for the judgment she never passed on him, for the innocence that she miraculously never seemed to lose… and he hated her for what she was.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Why do you wear your hair that way?” he muttered, glaring at her long, sharp ears jutting through her pale blonde hair. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I like it back,” she said breezily, seating herself diagonally from him. “Hello to you, too.” Faelta had grown up in the Alienage here in the city, though she never spoke of it. She was beautiful, but he couldn’t stop himself from thinking how much more beautiful she would be if her blue eyes were not quite so large, if her pretty nose was not quite so high-bridged, if her chin was not quite so daintily pointed. Her beauty was animal, alien, but he saw the looks she drew from other men, and felt a smug, fierce sense of protectiveness that was the closest thing to love he felt towards another creature. She was the most valuable thing in Martin’s life. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Faelta gently laid an armful of antique scrolls across the table. “There’s been word from Ferelden that a Blight has begun,” she said with an edge of caution.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin shrugged. “Let the whole place burn,” he said distractedly. “May every one of them be slaughtered.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The elf cocked her head, frowned, but said nothing. An escalating argument a few tables away concerning the differences between inversal and oversal repulsion hexes highlighted the solid silence between them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin shifted in his seat, leaned forward, looking down at the pointless book between his hands; his dark hair fell across his troubled face. “Do you believe the Maker punishes you for your sins?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She stared at the table, then sighed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He persisted. “Do you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Of course… I suppose. Doesn’t it say so, you know, in the Canticle?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The Chantry says a lot of things,” he said guardedly. “It all seems like driftwood, after a while.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Faelta looked away. “Sometimes driftwood is all you have to keep you afloat, and there’s nothing so bad about that,” she said, her voice softened by sadness. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin, enthralled with his own crisis, failed to notice. “I know. I know. I just can’t bring myself to cling to it. It’s just prolonging the inevitable. I think I’m being punished.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“What for?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He answered without hesitation. “For being a mage.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The elf’s long hands began to pick through the yellowed scrolls. “You’re talking nonsense.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He shook his head in rising frustration. “If you don’t understand, I won’t be able to explain. It’s as though I’m tied to a thousand lead weights. It’s like I’m deep, deep under water. It’s like being wrapped in wool, stifled. I don’t know how to get out of this. It’s killing me, but I can’t leave.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Martin, you sound like you’re depressed.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He laughed scornfully, explosively. “That may be the least helpful comment I’ve ever heard in my life, ever. Of course I’m depressed, you stupid, useless idiot. This is fact. It’s not something I have proven able to deal with on my own. And if you can’t help me, then leave, or find me someone who can.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“There’s no reason to get hostile!” Faelta whispered sharply.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“There is! Do you know why? Because anger and discontent are the only emotions I can still actually feel! Because this hot, sinking sensation is better than the numbness I feel most of the time! Being pointlessly angry is a <i>thousand</i> times better than the knowledge that in order to function outside of my own skull I have to encase myself in a shell of, of…” He stopped, faltering, stumbling over the weight of his own emotions. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">She stared, being, he felt, purposefully obtuse.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin pushed on, as though the thoughts were poison that needed to be purged. “We were born wrong, you and I. They tell us that we were born wrong. Why? How can power be wrong? I’ll tell you Faelta – power can only be wrong when it’s in the wrong hands. You and me – we <i>are</i> the wrong hands. When mothers tell stories to their children, we can <i>never</i> be the heroes. We were <i>built</i> wrong.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The elf closed her eyes, then opened them a crack, staring at the ancient scrolls in her hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You feel the pain of it, don’t you? The ache? The pain has… it’s alchemized me into a numb being. I’m a shadow! I can touch nothing, anymore. I give nothing meaning. I’m a slave to my birth, a shadow of a man.” He paused. He halfway wanted to cry, but no tears came. “Barren land,” he whispered. “A shadow over barren land.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Faelta shook her head ever so slightly. “I didn’t come here to have this kind of conversation with you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“No. But you’ll stay, and you’ll listen, because you’re <i>you</i>.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“You’re very self-centered, you know that?” Faelta’s nostrils flared, though she continued to stare at the scrolls before her.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I would rather be dead, than what I am right now,” he muttered, and meant it.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“So why not kill yourself, like all the others?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m afraid to.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Then stop complaining.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I don’t know any other way to ask for help.” Martin could scarcely believe the words that were pouring from his mouth in fits and starts, recognized them as near nonsense, but they were the truth, and as such he could only be mildly ashamed of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Faelta stood, her turquoise robes fluttering. She tried to gather the scrolls into her arms again, dropped several, tried again. “You… you’re… you have no idea what you’re asking,” she murmured, not looking at him. “You wouldn’t know help if, if it grabbed your arse and kissed you hello. Shut <i>up</i>, Martin. Kirkwall’s different since Guylian was hanged, since the Viscount was replaced, and if you’re wise you’ll shut up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Don’t leave,” he hissed, threatening. “Don’t you dare!”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">But she was gone, the silence solid between them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">News arrived that evening of his mother’s death. Laughter rose in his throat, but he swallowed it, barely keeping it down. The Templar who had brought him the letter watched him carefully. “Are you alright? Do you need a moment?” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin stared blankly at a point just above the Templar’s left ear.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The Templar seemed nonplussed. “You may petition the Knight-Commander for permission to attend the funeral, if you wish,” he said, almost encouragingly. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The mage smiled suddenly, a flash of light in a dark room. “No, I don’t think I shall, Ser Sullivan,” he said politely. “But thank you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">When the Templar had left, Martin read the letter again. <i>Death by water buffalo.</i> This time the laughter could not be stifled, and he buried his face in his pillow, his mad guffawing sounding almost like sobs. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Ser Sullivan was losing at Diamondback, but drunk enough that it didn’t bother him much. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Firault, you bastard! I’d swear you’re cheating!” he chuckled, throwing down his paltry hand with the others as the Knight opposite him raked in his winnings. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Cheating!” exclaimed Ser Firault, his swarthy face split with a winner’s grin. “Watch what you say around here, Sullivan, you never know who might be listening.” The table’s other two occupants snickered in agreement.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sullivan finished off the dregs of his ale. “Be careful what you hear, as well, I say. Listening can make you as guilty as speaking these days.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Firault sat back, counting coins and shaking his head quietly in the manner of one who agrees but doesn’t necessarily want to be seen agreeing. “Indeed. Only yesterday I was on duty in the library and overheard a rather unfortunate conversation between that dark-eyed Ferelden fellow, apprentice, what’s his name? Face like an underdone egg. Always a bit mopey.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh – Martin, I think.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, between him and that pretty elf girl he’s always got at his elbow. Faelta.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sullivan began thumbing tobacco into a pipe. “Huh. I took Martin a letter just last night. Turns out his mother’s dead. Trampled by a raging water buffalo.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Firault shook his head. “Only in Ferelden. If there truly is a Blight, it’s no small wonder they picked that Maker-forsaken place to start.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Sullivan looked thoughtful. “He is a bit of an odd bird, though, that Martin. He didn’t seem too put off by the news. He almost… seemed like he wanted to laugh, you know?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Firault shrugged. “Well, that’s not uncommon. Many of them are orphaned or sent away from home at young ages. Why should they have an emotional connection to the people who dumped them like dirty laundry on the Circle’s doorstep?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“I suppose you’re right,” Sullivan said, running a hand through his red hair. He blew a series of smoke rings at the wooden ceiling beams. “What did he say, out of curiosity?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Oh, this and that. Lad needs some guidance, if you ask me. Seems depressed. Talked about,” Firault sighed heavily, “power being in the wrong hands, and all that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Ah. Too bad. Your deal, by the way.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">A heavy hand on his shoulder woke Martin from a deep sleep just before dawn. He sat bolt upright, gasping into the darkness. A man’s voice, kind but businesslike, shushed him.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Easy, lad. Up with you now. There’s been a decision. This way.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Without further explanation, the hand took Martin firmly by the upper arm and urged him out of bed. Martin had no choice but to slide from the warmth of his sheets, onto the cool stones, and follow the Templar, shivering in his nightshirt. In the darkened hallway, another Templar fell into step on Martin’s other side, and Martin began to feel panic blooming inside of him, choking his questions. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">He was led through a series of locked doors and unfamiliar hallways, to a large, high room with no windows. Candles flickered at intervals along what may have been the outer edge of a spell circle, though it was impossible to tell in the darkness. The scent of magic put an edge on the air; Martin’s face drained of color as they led him to the center of the circle of candles, and held him there, trembling. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Martin Killbourne,” a woman’s voice boomed from a dark balcony above him. Martin realized with a jolt that she had used his family name. “You have been judged by this Order, and the authority vested in it by the Divine Chantry, to be of too weak a nature to undergo the Harrowing, and therefore it is determined that you shall be made Tranquil, as is your right and your duty.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Tranquil,” he repeated numbly. <i>No laughter, no tears, no danger, no dreams.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> He became aware of the sound of weeping. There, by the wall, Faelta sat with her knees to her chest, shaking with tears. “I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I just told them the truth. I’m sorry!” A shadowy figure lifted her, led her away, her sobs silenced by the slamming of a door.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Martin noticed suddenly that the Templars on either side of him had backed away, leaving him alone at the center of a growing, brightening beam of white-blue light. “No… there’s been a mistake,” he mumbled, panic making his vision blur. “I’m not weak, I j-just need a little help, I…”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes, Martin. You do need help. We’re helping you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Why?” he managed, his dark eyes wide, staring hard into the shadows. “Why?”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“The weak mage becomes a target for demonic possession. A possessed mage is an abomination, and abominations cannot be allowed to live. By making you Tranquil, you will no longer need to concern yourself with such a fate. You’ll be safe. You know these things, Martin,” the woman’s voice chided gently. “You know you are not strong enough to resist possession. Let us help you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His sweaty hands balled themselves into fists; his heart was beating hard at his ribs like a caged animal, desperate. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“Please, don’t struggle. We don’t want to have to take measures, now do we?” The voice was calm, soothing, delicately patronizing, the way he always thought his mother must sound. He found his fists loosening, his muscles relaxing into the steel grip of the strange white light; urine ran down the inside of his leg, dripping from his toes to the floor as the strange magic lifted him, held him, inside the glow.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">His final thought, as the white-hot light burned into his wide-open eyes, branding him, filling him, spilling from his fingertips, his nostrils, his gaping mouth, was of horses, steaming and stamping, and the sharp, metallic smell of snow. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Killbourne!</span></i><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> a voice screamed in his head. <i>My name is Martin Ki – <o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div></div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-19766939914542182192012-01-26T18:07:00.000-08:002012-01-26T18:07:36.042-08:00Patient OHere's a short story I wrote several years ago (2004) - I re-read it recently, and it still resonates. Thought I'd get it out there.<br />
<br />
<br />
...<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Doctor Reinhardt, I really think I have a problem.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor pulled out his chair, looking calmly at the patient he’d always thought of as Patient O, who was twittering on the modern and slightly awkward sofa. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“A problem you’d like to talk about?” the doctor asked antiseptically. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O refrained from speaking, though words were obviously straining to be loosed – her lips jerked and contorted against each other like, yes, like mating snakes, thought the doctor. He didn’t bother wondering what words were causing such a stir in his patient; he knew he’d hear them eventually. It was only a matter of time and careful prying. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Would you like me to unplug the phone?” he asked gently, slipping into his Patient O spiel. He had a spiel for every one of his cases. The doctor prided himself on his many faces, and on his ability to use each one as the situation demanded. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O nodded.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor did so, as he had done many times before for Patient O, though not before phoning his receptionist to inform her that he was not to be disturbed until further notice. He knew what the receptionist thought he was doing, isolated with Patient O, but he had it on his calendar to explain the situation to her once Patient O was no longer a patient.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Once the phone line was impotent on the carpet, the doctor seated himself in the chair he had pulled out earlier and gazed with what he was certain was an open, non-judgmental expression at Patient O. “Would you like to talk now?” He was a picture of honest intentions and attentiveness, legs crossed casually but with a hint of tension, not really able to relax until he had learned what was bothering his patient. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Fingers drumming a fast tattoo on the sides of her thighs, Patient O looked at the doctor, her chin down, her eyes wide. “Yeah.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Doctor Reinhardt waited patiently, nodded just slightly, sniffing someone’s coffee, the scent of it leaking under the door with the light. He allowed his mind to wander briefly, and wondered if he should buy more coffee before he made his way home tonight. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I’ve been thinking,” said Patient O. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor segued into active listening mode, his face falling into empathetic quietude.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Actually I haven’t,” Patient O corrected herself.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Haven’t been… thinking?” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“No. The thoughts just come. I don’t think them, they’re just there, without having been thought.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“What kind of thoughts?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O flashed a nervous grin which disappeared like mist in the sun. “Fantasies.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Inside, the doctor chortled. Outwardly, he said, “You’re willing to share them?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">After a pause, Patient O pressed her hands together and said “Yeah. I’m pretty sure they might be a problem.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor nodded a complicated nod, which consisted of a strong backwards movement of the top of the head, accompanied by a slight forward thrust of the chin, and followed by a gentle bouncing of the entire skull. The meaning of the nod – the doctor had worked on this for a considerable time in the mirror – was: <i>feel free to continue, you will not be judged, you will be respected no matter what you say.</i> It really was a brilliant nod, and skillfully executed. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O took a deep breath, as she had been taught to do, and inched a little closer to the edge of the sofa cushion. “Well,” she began with a sigh, the way everyone begins a story, “when it starts I’m in an office, a little like this, and the doctor is there.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Active Listening Mode On. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“We’re discussing something, I never know what, but it doesn’t matter, I think. So here I am talking, and there the doctor is, listening, only he’s not listening, he’s just switched on this feature he has, with his Listening Face and his comments like ‘Please go on’ and ‘Mmm.’ In his head he’s laughing at just about everything I say.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor blinks, once, with care, and begins to listen, but not too closely. Occasionally a patient will come up with this, and it never pays to panic. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“So I sit there talking and all the while I’m feeling something build up inside.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Indigestion? wondered the doctor.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“It builds and it builds and it causes me pain in my heart. I have no idea what it is, I’m thinking, is it frustration? Is it rage? Loathing? It could be any of those things. It could be all of them. At first I think it matters, but then I realize it doesn’t – it doesn’t make one bit of difference <i>what</i> that pain is. What matters is that I know <i>why</i> it is.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Her face is so blank, the doctor observed. This isn’t her usual emotional outpouring.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O slid a tiny bit closer to the edge of her seat. The movement was sudden and it caused the doctor’s eyes to jump up and down from Patient O’s face to the sofa and back again. Damn. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O continues, her voice never rising above conversational level, her open face revealing nothing more than an earnest desire to share a problem. “Yeah, I know exactly why. Because, you see, I have some problems, maybe more than other people, but when you look at me, I’m not so bad. There are people out there who are much crazier than me.” Patient O smiled again, briefly. “This is all in the fantasy, you understand. … When I’m sitting there in the office talking to the doctor, I can feel my problems inside me. They live there. But I can also feel my sanity and my… normalcy. It lives there too. So I’m talking and at the same time I’m realizing… I’m whole… and I’m pretty damn well off, considering. There is nothing inherently wrong with me. Only there is, because the doctor has told me so.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor refused to allow himself a nervous shift of the legs, focusing instead on his expression: he was trying for attentive and calm yet concerned, which was one he hadn’t really perfected.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">He found his eyes repeatedly drawn to Patient O’s hands, lying folded in her lap, the nervous drumming gone. The fingers were shortish and slender, with small knuckles; the nails were moderately well kept, and were painted bright red, the red of forties movie stars and the fire trucks young boys see in dreams. The hands themselves were deadly still. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I’m off because I was told I was off. I feel off because I was told I should feel off, because the things that go on in my head are not the things that go on in normal heads” Patient O looked down at her lap suddenly, her eyebrows knitting. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I can’t tell you how much that hurts me,” she said softly. “That’s where the pain comes from. That, and seeing the doctor who is listening to me for what he really is.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O looked up, sadness in her eyes.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“He’s a monster.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor stared, his expressions running on automatic.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“He feeds off of us, those of us who are crazy but not so crazy that we piss in the corners or can’t pay or be controlled by words and ideas, not so crazy that we won’t take the pills he feeds us by the shovelful. Here is the man who listens, but doesn’t feel. He’s doing nothing but eating my words and spitting out garbage. He pollutes me. To him, people like me are nothing more than… things. We are nothing more than numbers and diagnoses to him. And this causes me pain.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The room was not quiet – it was rimmed with ambient noise from the hallway, voices, footsteps, shuffling clattering – but to the doctor it suddenly seemed as though the rest of the world was a thousand miles away. He was on a deserted island with Patient O and her red-nailed hands, sitting so still in her lap; but he put a stop to his imaginings, reminding himself of his need to maintain control of the situation. A doctor is nothing if he is not in control. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O took another deep breath. “But I know what to do.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">And she stood up. Moving towards the doctor, she said with a dreamy confidence, “In my fantasy, I know what to do.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The doctor’s legs uncrossed themselves in a hurry and he said loudly, “Please sit down!” This will not do, his brain said. Do not lose control! But his arms twanged with tension from his hands gripping the arms of his chair.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Patient O did not sit down. He screamed her name. “Sit down!” he barked, pleased with the force and authority in his tone.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I know what to do,” Patient O said again, and leapt. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Sprawled across his desk, just as his fingers closed on the receiver, and just as hers closed around his neck, the doctor remembered he had unplugged the phone. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">It was no use to scream. She’d found his trachea almost immediately, her short fingers like steel bands. His limbs flailed uselessly in the air, against the pressed wood of the desk; he felt his bladder evacuate, hot urine streaming down the inside of his thigh. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“… And in my fantasy, the doctor can’t make a noise, he can only listen to the sounds he makes as he dies, and to the blood pumping in his ears. I wonder if he knows it’ll take minutes – <i>minutes</i> – for him to die, and that no one will come running because they all think he’s fucking me. And I wonder if he knows these are the last words he’ll ever have to listen to, and if he’s laughing anymore.”<o:p></o:p></div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-83001640797021516452012-01-06T18:51:00.000-08:002012-01-06T18:51:45.936-08:00The Zen of Shoveling Shit<div class="MsoNormal">What the hell am I doing here? It’s ten degrees outside. The ground is frozen, wisps of week-old snow pocketed in the grass. My hands are the lovely pale periwinkle of an amateur sunrise; my teeth are chattering uncontrollably; I may have had ears at some point, but they have become holes through which the icy wind finds passage into my skull. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s fucking <i>cold</i>. And what am I doing here?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’m shoveling dog shit, that’s what. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They told me never to work with children or animals. Children, okay, no problem there – never could get the hang of micropeople, anyway. Then there are the dogs. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">There have always been dogs. Years ago, the first day I walked among them, I knew there would always be dogs. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And with dogs, comes shit, and shit must be shoveled. So here I stand, shivering, trying not to get cold poo on my hands as I transfer yet another shovelful into the ubiquitous and life-saving used grocery bag. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal">Sometimes – more often lately, it seems – I ask myself in desperate tones, Why do I do what I do? Why don’t I get a job doing something that doesn’t involve bodily waste or the handling of angry animals? Why don’t I get a nice career in a boring, lucrative field like accounting, or geology, and perhaps go one week without coming home smelling of cat urine? Making money… and no long discussions about diarrhea? What’s that like? Is that even real? Did you know there are people out there who don’t know how to <i>spell</i> diarrhea, because they never <i>have</i> to? What’s that like?<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Scrape, scrape</i>. Loose stool is the worst. It’s like trying to scrape jelly from the table with the edge of your toast. Gah, yuck. You can never get it completely out of the grass, you can only move it around until it dissipates. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Why do I do what I do? None of the answers I’ve given myself over the years have been satisfactory. I look down at my scars – my many scars, crisscrossing my arms and hands, mostly, with a few on my knees and one particularly good one on my right bosom – and sigh, because I can put a dog or cat to each one. I remember the name of every animal I’ve come across, and I realize that <i>that</i>, right there, is why I do what I do. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Scrape, scrape.</i> Almost done. It’s all in the slight flick of the wrist, or would be, if my fingers weren’t like frozen sausages around the metal handles of the scooper. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">… Because to me, each one is worth it. Even the really <i>bad</i> ones, the ones you dread seeing on the schedule – the cats who scream and fling their waste at you, the dogs who snarl and snap at you, and roll like gators in the catch pole. Every one of them is worth my time and my remembrance, and why shouldn’t they be? The scars they leave on my skin may be the only lasting impression they leave in this world, and I will gladly bear them – as long as I live, an echo of you will live also. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Sigh. </i>I tie the bag shut and toss it into the dumpster.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The yard is clean, my friends, my crazy dogs. So I’ll sit with you, like I used to: staring into the setting sun, calm and undemanding, waiting to go home. The cold wind blows my hair; you lift your noses to it, and everything is, for the first and maybe the last time, alright. I stink like a house full of dogs, and one of you is about to cop a squat after all my hard work, and someone is about to walk through the door and get everyone riled, and <i>damn</i> my hands are cold, and I’m fairly certain that I have poo somewhere on me… and still, the simple perfection of this moment outweighs the infernal push and pull of the day, and hold us all in stillness. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Help me to remember that, my friends, when I’m in tears scraping hardened liquid feces from the concrete floors and walls of your runs, or getting piss paw-prints smack in the middle of my scrub top, or getting my softest parts clamped down upon by your unsympathetic jaws. Help me to remember the stillness, and the rightness. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">They told me never to work with children or animals, and I defied them. But with dogs comes shit, and shit needs shoveling. And that’s alright – a little shit is a paltry price to pay for a cold wind, a lifted nose, and a brief glimpse of perfection. <o:p></o:p></div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3355220610261424247.post-88490174697630471102011-12-08T18:35:00.000-08:002011-12-08T18:35:51.623-08:00Smoke and RainDisclaimer for the faint of heart: what you are about to read is fanfiction. It's good fanfiction, certainly readable, hopefully free of major spelling and grammatical errors, and hopefully not overly reliant on a previous familiarity with the lore, but the fact remains: this story is a fanfic. It is what it is; take it as such. <br />
<div><br />
</div><div>That being said, this is the prologue to the Dragon Age II rewrite that I've been working on for a while. There was so much undeveloped potential in the game that I had to take it and run. Haters, as they say, gonna hate, and many people have a lot of animosity towards the game and the direction taken by the franchise - to them I say, It's a game. You have the option to <i>not </i>play it. I enjoyed both main games very much, though I felt the second was unfairly rushed and dragged down by some writing that was overly self-indulgent. It seemed to me that the devs enjoyed their own work so much they decided to make us play their version only, instead of letting us choose our own paths. It's not like it's a role-playing game, or anything, right? </div><div><br />
</div><div>Anyway. Forget the game. Here's where I took the story. Feel free to comment.</div><div><br />
</div><div>Characters are of course all property of Bioware and EA, except Hawke. She's mine. </div><div><br />
</div><div>...</div><div><br />
</div><div>Prologue</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Two riders moved a few hours ahead of the main group, weaving their way slowly up the winding, treacherous road to Kirkwall, the heavy autumn rain slowing their pace to a careful climb. The sun was sinking behind the great snow-peaked Sundermount to the northwest of the city; above the stone walls, visible through the smoke and mist, the Keep rose like a pale obelisk, reaching into the sky. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The first rider coughed, lifted her visor, spat upon the sodden earth. “Maker, what are they burning? Garbage?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“They’ve set fire to their Undercity,” replied the second quietly. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Faugh! Was this Undercity a sewer?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“In part, Cassandra. The rest of it was home to thousands of poor.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The one called Cassandra fell silent, her black steel helmet impassive, her peevishness evident only in the way she spurred her horse on rather harder than was necessary. Eventually she stirred again, reluctantly, staring upwards at the reach of the Keep. “What do you know of this city, Sister?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The second rider was silent for a long moment before answering. “Kirkwall is a city built on slavery. The Imperials used it as a hub for the slave trade thousands of years ago, and the spirits of those slaves live in the very stones of this place. Those who call this place home, they lack… quietude of the soul.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra laughed bitterly, the sound made hollow by her helmet. “Such a delicate way of calling them thieves, cutthroats, and ruthless bastards.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“You’d do well to recall that the Prophet herself helped lead an uprising of slaves against their Imperial masters,” replied the second rider sharply, her face obscured by a dark gray-green woolen hood. “Change does not come gently; sometimes ruthlessness is the only way to alter the status quo.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Careful, Sister. One might almost believe that you sympathize with the insurgents.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“One does not need sympathy to understand the reactions of the downtrodden. As a friend once told me – hold someone down long enough, and they will fight to get up. This is human nature.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“The inevitability of this war is irrelevant at this point, don’t you think, Sister?” said Cassandra coldly. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Lessons in the prevention of genocide are never irrelevant, I feel,” answered the hooded figure, almost breezily, but steel was in the undertones and Cassandra let it drop with a grunt. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">They rode on slowly, the steamy breath of the horses fountaining into the chill air, hooves thumping on the earth. Stars were emerging between the roiling rainclouds as they approached the city gates: tall bars of viridium set into the stone, shut tight, blazing with torches.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Most people enter the city via the docks,” muttered the hooded figure, dismounting. Cassandra followed suit, pulling off her helmet, tucking it under her arm. She had expected… well, truth be told, she had expected the gates to be wide open, and chaos to be pouring out, but… <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">A smartly-armored guardsman leaned over the top of the battlements. “Who goes? The hour is late,” he called unwaveringly, holding up a torch. Sensed but unseen in the darkness behind the arrow slits, half a dozen crossbow bolts trained on the travelers, awaiting an answer.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra stared up at him. “We are the agents of the Chantry sent by her holiness the Divine,” she said, frowning, and pulled aside her heavy traveling cloak to reveal the emblem picked out in white on her black breastplate. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The guardsman spoke to someone behind him in hushed tones. After a moment he addressed them again. “Welcome to Kirkwall, Seekers. The Guard-Captain is on her way to escort you to the Keep. Just a moment, please.” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Polite, for a ruthless insurgent,” said the hooded rider quietly.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra busied herself tucking her helmet into the saddlebag, pulling off her gloves, running her hands through her short black hair, pushing it back off her forehead. She rolled her shoulders to settle her heavy black armor, straightened her buckles; it would not do to look slovenly.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Only a few minutes had passed before the city gates swung open with a metallic creak and a tall woman in steel plate approached them, carrying a lantern, followed by four guardsmen. The Guard-Captain walked as though she had a personal grudge against the cobblestones; her vivid orange hair was pulled back in a neat, low bun, and her lips were set in a thin line. Her left eye was bandaged and covered with a red leather patch, an obviously recent injury; her right eye, bright green, glittered with barely concealed suspicion. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra nodded curtly. “Guard-Captain Aveline. I am Cassandra Penteghast.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The woman nodded, shook her hand firmly. “Seeker.” Cassandra hid her distaste at the coarse Ferelden custom, but noted more than anything the strength in the woman’s grip. Formidable, she thought to herself, eyeing the red patch. She must be, to be a Ferelden Captain of the Guard in the Free Marches.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Guard-Captain Aveline looked from Cassandra to her hooded companion, standing silently beside the horses. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Forgive my compatriot,” said Cassandra. “Anonymity is imperative to her line of work. If you would be so kind, we must get to the Keep as quickly as possible. Our investigations are already underway as we speak, and the rest of our order is less than half a day behind us.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Aveline nodded. “So I understand. Your horses will be of no use to you in the city. My men will look after them in the stables here. This way,” she said, her voice low and cool. She about-faced, headed briskly towards the heart of the city; the two figures, one in gleaming black armor, the other cloaked in dark gray, shouldered their packs and followed behind her. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">No, horses would certainly be of no use in this city, thought Cassandra, her eyes following the stone staircases on their way up to the keep. A city made entirely of stairs, constructed in tiers – the same way the ancient mountain dwellers grew their crops. Instead of soil and barley, however, this city was stone, and timber, and the smell of smoke.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I’ve heard there have been fires in the Undercity,” said Cassandra.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Aveline nodded. “It’s unclear at this point who set them. The abandoned tunnels go for miles – it’s impossible for us to put them all out, despite the rains. So for now, Darktown burns.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Those who lived there – where did they go?” asked the hooded figure.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The Guard-Captain glanced over her shoulder as she said, businesslike, “Many died in the tunnels. Those who survived have taken refuge in the ruins of the Chantry, or the few shelters that have been opened in Lowtown. We’re making do. For now.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"> “It’s in the Maker’s hands now. He will not fail you,” said the hooded figure in that calm, contented, and, Cassandra thought, extremely annoying tone of hers. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Guard-Captain Aveline actually laughed out loud, and the bitterness was solid in the sound. “Well, Seeker, we are certainly in <i>someone’s</i> hands.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">They walked in silence upwards, ever upwards, towards the towers of the Keep. All around them, makeshift blockades sealed off what must have been a labyrinthine system of side-streets and alleys; the pale stone of which the entire city seemed to be carved was blackened by fire and spellblast. They passed through a broad cobbled square with a fine center garden of towering topiary and manicured flowerbeds, bizarrely untouched. The grand townhouse at the east side of the square had not fared so well, and was missing a large portion of its second and third stories, as though a hand had reached down from the sky and snatched the very architecture away; half-blackened wall hangings and carpets dangled and fluttered in the open air, rivulets of rain water flowing downwards between the bones of the building.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra felt a touch at her arm, turned her head. Her companion nodded subtly in the opposite direction, towards the west side of the square. A tall, fine house stood there, dark and cold, clearly unoccupied, but unscathed by the recent strife. Above the large, reinforced door, a crest: two crimson eagles on a field of bronze. On closer inspection, a number of small but significant items – weapons, jewelry, shields, strips of cloth, bunches of wilted flowers – had been carefully arranged below the shield with almost cairn-like reverence. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Yes, that is where she lived,” said the Guard-Captain coolly, without turning. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“We’ll need full access to the house, of course.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The orange-haired woman did not answer, though Cassandra was sure she heard. “We—“ she began more loudly, but a whispered voice in her ear cut her off. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“They have built a shrine to this woman, Cassandra. We must go carefully. Do not press this.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">They drew close to the bottom of the grand staircase leading directly up to the Keep. “The Acting Knight-Commander will assist you from here, Seekers,” said Aveline, turning to them, raising the lantern. The yellow light revealed lines of exhaustion on the Captain’s face. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra raised her dark brow in surprise. “Knight-Commander? But we were under the impression that the Order had been wiped out in Kirkwall.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“We have been many things in the last few weeks,” came a man’s tired voice from above them, “but we are not yet wiped out.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">They looked up as the tall Templar approached. His steel armor was partially disassembled to allow for a plaster cast on the lower half of his left arm, held tight across his chest by a sling – a shield break, if Cassandra was any judge, not an uncommon injury in the Order. His square jaw and tightly cropped dark blonde hair spoke of his military training, but his hazel eyes spoke only of battle, deeply set in sockets so dark they may have been recently blackened. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">He exchanged a look with the Guard-Captain more shadowed than the night falling down around them. “Seekers, you are welcome,” he said, “provided that what you seek is the truth.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“There is nothing else worth seeking,” said the hooded figure softly.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The Templar nodded, once. “I am Knight-Captain Cullen, acting Knight-Commander for Kirkwall. I will show you to your offices. Thank you, Guard-Captain – I’m sure you have other duties that beckon. In fact I’m certain of it – word has just come by Brennan that there has been another incident in the Pie District.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Aveline laughed again. “The Pie District is an incident in itself. I wonder who’s blown up whom this time.” The woman nodded briskly – did not salute, Cassandra noted – and strode towards the Barracks, just to the east of the Keep.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“You are Ferelden,” commented Cassandra as they moved on.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I am,” answered Ser Cullen.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Are there many Fereldens still in the city?”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The Knight-Captain nodded. “There are,” he said simply.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Interesting,” mused Cassandra, staring at the back of his head, at the bare skin of his upper arm visible through the sling, at the slice of undertunic escaping where the armpiece of his armor had been removed. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Ser Cullen led them through the massive viridium-plated doors of the Keep, nodding curtly to the sentries – a city guard on one side, a Templar on the other – and up the central staircase, down a long passageway to another set of doors, or rather door, as one had been torn off and was propped up against the stone wall. The room beyond was high, and long, and red: crimson banners fluttered on the walls, crimson sconces burned every few feet, and a red runner stretched before them, leading to a throne on a dais. The throne, Cassandra noted as they drew closer, was two stylized eagles cunningly crafted into furniture, probably by dwarves, and there, upon the seat, a simple steel crown. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The Viscount’s crown, it was said, which <i>she</i> had pulled from the man’s decapitated brow, and placed on the throne; neither would ever again be occupied. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“The Throne Room should suffice as your center of operations, Seekers,” said Cullen, gesturing around him. “The library, as well, is at your disposal, and the North Wing has been cordoned off for personal use by your order. I would recommend, as a matter of safety, that anyone wishing to venture into the city request an armed escort, either of myself of the Guard-Captain. Kirkwall, as you might suppose, is not the safest place to wander these days.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Tell me, Knight-Captain,” said Cassandra suddenly, turning to him, “what do you know of our order?” For the first time, she noticed his right hand twitching, the fingers tightening and loosening compulsively, and his brow sweating quietly – lyrium withdrawal, she realized. Since the… events, there had surely been an interruption in the lyrium flow to the city, which must have started to affect the remaining Templars by now. Ser Cullen seemed to be handling himself well, considering.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The Templar looked at her sharply for a moment, then looked away, towards the throne. “I know nothing of the Seekers of Truth,” he said, and Cassandra knew he was telling the truth. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Good,” she said. “We thank you for your assistance.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Ser Cullen saluted, turned, headed for the door.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“And keep yourself available. For all eventualities.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The knight did not stop, but half-turned, his guarded eye glittering in the sconce light, before disappearing into the dark passage.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Cassandra turned, half-smiling to herself. The hooded figure snorted gently. “Nevarrans. So subtle when dealing with matters of the heart.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Heart? No, Sister. Besides, our sources say he was involved with her. Undoubtedly he has useful information. If I can obtain it without violence, all the better.” The dark-haired woman looked around her as she pulled off her cloak. “This should do quite nicely.” She climbed up the dais, stood beside the Throne of Kirkwall, her sharp olive face lit with crimson, looked down towards the city, felt it stretching out before her. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“This will do quite nicely, indeed,” she breathed.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Late that night, after the rest of the order had arrived and was settled, the hooded figure went out. The walls were too sheer to clamber down, but luckily the kitchens were virtually deserted at this hour, and she was able to slip out through the servant’s entrance without notice. She moved lightly from shadow to shadow, the dark gray-green of her cloak making her passage all but invisible to all but the most careful observer. The moon was half-full, and while the rains had blown away, streaky gray clouds had taken their place, rushing across the sky. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The streets were nearly empty here, though she could see the light and smoke of fires further down in the city – Darktown, the Foundry, and the Ash District, Kirkwall’s own city of the dead. She didn’t have far to go; in the square they’d passed through on their way to the Keep, she eased around a squat bush in the shape of a whimsical bird, hunkered down in the shadows, waiting, watching, disappearing into the formless dark. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">After a time two figures approached the dark house bearing the crimson crest. They held no torch, no lantern, but looked furtively into every shadow as they walked. Both elves, the hooded figure noted, one of them wearing the plate and chain of the guard, the other a plain brown tunic and breeches, barefoot, no cloak in spite of the chill. Drawing close to the tiny makeshift shrine, the elf in uniform held back, eyeing the street. “Hurry, Nuna,” she whispered. A female, thought the hooded figure in surprise. A female elf in the guard! Even five years ago such a thing would have been unheard of in Kirkwall. Only six years ago the elves in the city still had to abide by a curfew.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Nuna crept close to the shrine, knelt down, carefully pulled a small object from inside her tunic, gazed down at it, clutched it to her narrow chest. The hooded figure saw by the set of the elf’s shoulders, by the hang of her head, that she was weeping.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The elf in uniform looked down at her own feet, dark wisps of hair falling into her face, then stepped forward, knelt, put her hand gently on Nuna’s back. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“He shouldn’t have died, Lia,” whispered Nuna, her voice thick with grief.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I know,” whispered Lia in response. “I know.”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“He was just… just a baby…”<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“I know, Nuna. I’m… I’m sorry.” Tears streaked down Lia’s face now, though she clearly fought them.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“My little baby…” wept Nuna, her shoulders heaving, curling around the tiny object she held to her. Her dark blonde hair fell across her face. “I’m sorry, my baby, so sorry…” <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The elves’ tears mingled with rainwater in the cracks between the cobblestones. When Lia spoke again, it was so softly that the figure in the shadows had to read her lips to understand her words.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“It will not be for nothing, Nuna.” Lia pressed her hand against her friend’s back again, firmly, urging.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">After a moment, Nuna nodded wordlessly, looked at the object in her hands one more time before placing it tenderly on the makeshift shrine. Lia helped her to stand, and the elves fled together, casting a last look behind them. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">When they had gone, the cloaked figure detached itself from the shadows, drew close to the shrine, reaching up a gloved hand and pulling back her hood as she did so. Pale moonlight shone off of chin-length auburn hair, straight as an arrow. She knelt reverentially beside the shrine, gently touched the object that Nuna had placed there. It was a doll, roughly made of plain cloth, but hard-loved by some young child: both arms had been sewn back on at some point, and the impression of tiny fingers could clearly be seen around the doll’s middle. Two blue buttons were stitched in place for eyes, and two long triangles of leather made sharp little elven ears, the tip of one seemingly chewed by young teeth.<o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">“Maker watch over you, child,” whispered the red-haired figure, her fingers trailing over the little toy. She could feel the dampness of Nuna’s tears there, and the warmth of her hand where she had clutched it. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The rest of the objects were similar – a broken blade, driven into a crack in the cobblestones, a leather dog collar, a number of tiny runestones, small purple shells, sundry bits of jewelry, feathers, bottles of wine, some coins, even a wooden staff, all laid down reverently in tribute to the crest, and to that which the crest represented. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">The cloaked figure pulled her own offering out of an oiled leather pocket on her belt – she lit the tiny white candle with a sulfurous yellow match, let a few drops of hot wax fall onto the stones, and set the candle firmly into its own wax, out of the wind. <o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 27.0pt;">Leliana stood, turning away from the shrine, raising her hood again, her ocean blue eyes glinting briefly in the light of the half-moon. As she made her way back to the Keep, walking in shadows, she found herself trembling, and muttered to herself: “Who are you, Hawke, and what is it you have become?”<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div>Ghanima9http://www.blogger.com/profile/06383893168776628385noreply@blogger.com0