Gem, by Greater Realms
I am jealous of them.
I know it is the other way around for them. I know that when I pass them by in villages; dirt-smudged cheeks of children and hollow-cheeked faces of mothers, tight lipped and judging...I know they envy me. They think they do. They only see what I was born as, but they do not see me.
They do not see that every year is a link. A small thing no bigger than a finger, but that link is ice-cold, weighs more than a dead-heart and only connects to another link. Every year, I feel as if I grow several more. These years...these links in a chain that are winding slowly around my shoulders. This one was one my love, a link. This one was once my friend. A link. This one was like my child, a link. This one was my child. A link. This one is my dead lover. A link. A face. A link. A memory. A link. Another death. A link.
My shoulders are so heavy.
I am so heavy.
Humans look at me and they don't see the frailty of my elven heritage. They see the frailty in their own short lives. They look at me and see a small piece of immortality and they hate me for it. I can see the envy in the back of their eyes when they try to cover it with small, flat little smiles. And they are jealous.
These beings that do not have to wear centuries of love and death--they envy me. These beings who finally eat up their decades and go peacefully into nothing more, who do not have to feel their back begin to bow in tears kept for a small century--
I...I am jealous of them.
-Gem
Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
-
Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
- Contact:
Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
- Contact:
Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
(AND then there's me. I took the concept of walking a mile to ten miles, I think. Instead of writing the characters in their usual setting... I wrote them somewhen and somewhere else....)
Lirenel and Jack Scott by Pharlen
(Because I don't know much about Lirenel's backstory, or Jacks, I have hereby decided that they are respectively a Union captain and wandering minstrel. Because I know more about Civil War battles and warfare than I do about Hot Blond Elves and Sexay Brunet Fae.)
Within an hour, 900 men were dead.
By the end of the day, nearly all of them were.
A valley of the splendor of summer's lazy heat had filled with bodies thick as bot flies in the stockyards. A stream that promised sweet surcease from the warmth of the day ran oily red, bilious taints of yellow and green, fetid and polluted.
Somewhere in the distance, women wailed and screamed, but not in sorrow. They battled among themselves, perhaps with looters, perhaps they fought for the right to kill any living they might find. A few of them had no pretenses and wore the uniforms of men, bore the weapons, and died among them.
Night fell, and oblivion.
The crows arrived in the morning for the feast. He watched in idle interest as a large female tore the softer parts from the open and bloating ribcage of one of his men. As the bird worked, she diligently fed her three screeling fledglings. None feathered properly, they must have been thrown from their nest by the fighting.
The mother did what she had to do.
The swine arrived. Vicious, filthy brutes, they helped themselves to the carnage, and drove away the remaining camp followers. They drove away the citizens of the nearby town come to see what had become of the two proud armies who had met so violently, so disastrously, the day before.
Another crow landed near him. It pecked at him. He weakly pushed the bird back. Feathers fluffing, the creature eyed him, head tilting one way and other.
"Come to lead my soul home?" he asked the bird softly. The crow crackled, as if amused, and fluttered away.
"Does anyone live...?" A few crows answered him. It was a dangerous question. If any of the Southern lads survived... If any of their women remained...
They were in Confederate territory. There was no help for any Union soldier. The hate had gone bone deep, there were no treaties or promises of mercy, of decency to the dead or wounded.
The heat beat down. The stench was overpowering. His eyes closed. He waited for the crows to take him.
A strange man hunkered before him.
There was a crooked man, who walked a crooked mile...
Water doused over his face. Water poured down his throat. It burned like life, and he drank greedily all he could.
"Now, lad, tell me," the man whispered in a lilting accent he couldn't quite identify, "Who's brilliance of brain called for this disaster of a battle? I see silver bits of fancy work all over this blue. Are you the master of these forces?"
"No," he replied in a ragged whispering, "Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain. Union Cavalry. Colonel is likely dead. Is anyone alive?"
"It is the river of death, Lirenal Fael-Danser, Captain of the Union Cavalry," the man whispered in response, peering into the pale gold of Lirenel's hazing eyes.
"Then why am I still in pain?" There was a faint wisp of humor in the fallen warrior's voice. The strange man crowed a soft laugh.
"P'rhaps, Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain of the Union Cavalry, there is no surcease of the pain of battle, and it ever is fought in the afterlife to punish the fools who call such men as you to pointless war."
"It is not pointless," Lirenel responded with a weary sigh, "It just …"
"What?"
"Was not the jolly outing and return to normalcy as was believed."
"Why do you fight, Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain of the Union Cavalry?" the man inquired, his dark eyes peculiarly bright.
"I have always been a soldier," Lirenel responded, his brows knitting a bit, "I joined as a lad. I worked my way through the ranks. When we were called to fight this war, I was already here."
"But why?"
Lirenel was silent. Why. It was a job. It was the only life he knew. It was his life. From a boy, when his father left him with a drum and book of military cadences with the local garrison, to that moment where he lay upon a decaying and fetid battlefield, waiting for death.
Maybe he was looking upon that thing now.
"It is the right thing to do," Lirenel finally whispered, "Not the right way. I cannot change how these battles and wars are done, I am just another soldier."
"Mm. You are brave," the odd man smiled. Lirenel shrugged as best he could.
"It has little to do with bravery, it is doing that which needs doing."
"You tried to turn your charge, why?"
Lirenel's brows knit. He had tried to turn the charge over the stream. He had realized that it had been a bad move, that they would have done better to move further upstream and cut off their enemy rather than to meet them head on.
"I saw where we could have made a true strike. Unfortunately, my colonel could not see what I had, and though I tried, my men followed their last orders from him."
"Is your body still pained?" the man inquired, abrupt. Lirenel frowned faintly and gave a soft and wry chuckle.
"Dear sir, my pain is so dire, I have ceased to feel it at all. I expect you have only stalled Death. Or perhaps you are He, come to carry me home."
"You are single minded, rather, but you are intelligent and you are wiser than you know," the man decided, closing one eye, his forefinger pressed to the side of his face, standing like a gun site over the open eye.
"So I have been told," Lirenel agreed.
"We must leave now. The crows cannot drive away the hogs any longer, and the townsfolk are beginning to brave the carnage," the man murmured, reaching to pull Lirenel to his feet. He was a tall man, he was slender as a reed. His hair was black and chopped into uneven lengths, riddled through with beads, with feathers, with knots and bits and pieces of a life on the road. His coat was Harlequin's own array of shabby ribbons and tattered wool. His eyes.... his eyes....
A wandering minstrel, Lirenel decided, making a meagre living on the road simply because his feet ever ached to see what was beyond the next hill.
"I, too, wander. See what comes next," Lirenel abruptly told the man as he staggered to his feet.
"Do you. Do you wonder what it would be to have a home and hearth?"
"Yes."
"Then come along. Your life shall not be wasted among these killing fields. I am Jack. Jack Scott."
"I pledge you my life for saving me, sir," Lirenel told him. He stood. His gaze skimmed over a horror indescribable before returning to this strange and crooked man.
"Accepted," Jack crowed, his grin sly, "Come along, Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain. Hold fast my hand. That the hogs and villagers shall not harm what I have worked so hard to save."
It was an odd request, but Lirenel found nothing wrong with it. He gripped Jack's hand, and let the man draw him along mildly as a child. It was strange that as they walked further north, they found no other living people.
"Am I dead, Mr. Scott?" Lirenel inquired politely. Jack shook his head with a grin that forcibly recalled the coyote.
"No, no, lad. You are very much alive, and you shall remain so. There will be other battles for you, and perhaps, with your wisdom, they shall be decisive and without all of this shed blood."
"Where are we going...?"
"To my court, where you shall become my First Knight."
Lirenel's golden brows knit. He looked back to the foul decay of the battle field. After a moment, he nodded, he looked into Jack's eyes. They were dark, studded with all of the stars in the sky. Lirenel could see himself within them. He bowed slowly.
"I have pledged my life to yours."
"And I shall pledge that I will never lead you to such a disaster. You will see to that..."
They passed the crossroads before Lirenel knew they had left the mortal world behind. He did not look back again.
Months later, an ice eyed woman stood sternly in the midst of bone and rotting filth, writing on a thick notebook, recording what three grim black men had to show her.
"This here is a diary saying 'Captain Lirenel Fael-Danser', missus," one of the men called, "Maybe this skull is his, maybe it isn't."
"Presume it is not, Charles, Fael-Danser has no family hoping for remains," the woman responded, "Let us presume it is of Goffrey Henderson."
"Yes'm."
(Loosely based on the ill fated Battle of Chickamauga)
Lirenel and Jack Scott by Pharlen
(Because I don't know much about Lirenel's backstory, or Jacks, I have hereby decided that they are respectively a Union captain and wandering minstrel. Because I know more about Civil War battles and warfare than I do about Hot Blond Elves and Sexay Brunet Fae.)
Within an hour, 900 men were dead.
By the end of the day, nearly all of them were.
A valley of the splendor of summer's lazy heat had filled with bodies thick as bot flies in the stockyards. A stream that promised sweet surcease from the warmth of the day ran oily red, bilious taints of yellow and green, fetid and polluted.
Somewhere in the distance, women wailed and screamed, but not in sorrow. They battled among themselves, perhaps with looters, perhaps they fought for the right to kill any living they might find. A few of them had no pretenses and wore the uniforms of men, bore the weapons, and died among them.
Night fell, and oblivion.
The crows arrived in the morning for the feast. He watched in idle interest as a large female tore the softer parts from the open and bloating ribcage of one of his men. As the bird worked, she diligently fed her three screeling fledglings. None feathered properly, they must have been thrown from their nest by the fighting.
The mother did what she had to do.
The swine arrived. Vicious, filthy brutes, they helped themselves to the carnage, and drove away the remaining camp followers. They drove away the citizens of the nearby town come to see what had become of the two proud armies who had met so violently, so disastrously, the day before.
Another crow landed near him. It pecked at him. He weakly pushed the bird back. Feathers fluffing, the creature eyed him, head tilting one way and other.
"Come to lead my soul home?" he asked the bird softly. The crow crackled, as if amused, and fluttered away.
"Does anyone live...?" A few crows answered him. It was a dangerous question. If any of the Southern lads survived... If any of their women remained...
They were in Confederate territory. There was no help for any Union soldier. The hate had gone bone deep, there were no treaties or promises of mercy, of decency to the dead or wounded.
The heat beat down. The stench was overpowering. His eyes closed. He waited for the crows to take him.
A strange man hunkered before him.
There was a crooked man, who walked a crooked mile...
Water doused over his face. Water poured down his throat. It burned like life, and he drank greedily all he could.
"Now, lad, tell me," the man whispered in a lilting accent he couldn't quite identify, "Who's brilliance of brain called for this disaster of a battle? I see silver bits of fancy work all over this blue. Are you the master of these forces?"
"No," he replied in a ragged whispering, "Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain. Union Cavalry. Colonel is likely dead. Is anyone alive?"
"It is the river of death, Lirenal Fael-Danser, Captain of the Union Cavalry," the man whispered in response, peering into the pale gold of Lirenel's hazing eyes.
"Then why am I still in pain?" There was a faint wisp of humor in the fallen warrior's voice. The strange man crowed a soft laugh.
"P'rhaps, Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain of the Union Cavalry, there is no surcease of the pain of battle, and it ever is fought in the afterlife to punish the fools who call such men as you to pointless war."
"It is not pointless," Lirenel responded with a weary sigh, "It just …"
"What?"
"Was not the jolly outing and return to normalcy as was believed."
"Why do you fight, Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain of the Union Cavalry?" the man inquired, his dark eyes peculiarly bright.
"I have always been a soldier," Lirenel responded, his brows knitting a bit, "I joined as a lad. I worked my way through the ranks. When we were called to fight this war, I was already here."
"But why?"
Lirenel was silent. Why. It was a job. It was the only life he knew. It was his life. From a boy, when his father left him with a drum and book of military cadences with the local garrison, to that moment where he lay upon a decaying and fetid battlefield, waiting for death.
Maybe he was looking upon that thing now.
"It is the right thing to do," Lirenel finally whispered, "Not the right way. I cannot change how these battles and wars are done, I am just another soldier."
"Mm. You are brave," the odd man smiled. Lirenel shrugged as best he could.
"It has little to do with bravery, it is doing that which needs doing."
"You tried to turn your charge, why?"
Lirenel's brows knit. He had tried to turn the charge over the stream. He had realized that it had been a bad move, that they would have done better to move further upstream and cut off their enemy rather than to meet them head on.
"I saw where we could have made a true strike. Unfortunately, my colonel could not see what I had, and though I tried, my men followed their last orders from him."
"Is your body still pained?" the man inquired, abrupt. Lirenel frowned faintly and gave a soft and wry chuckle.
"Dear sir, my pain is so dire, I have ceased to feel it at all. I expect you have only stalled Death. Or perhaps you are He, come to carry me home."
"You are single minded, rather, but you are intelligent and you are wiser than you know," the man decided, closing one eye, his forefinger pressed to the side of his face, standing like a gun site over the open eye.
"So I have been told," Lirenel agreed.
"We must leave now. The crows cannot drive away the hogs any longer, and the townsfolk are beginning to brave the carnage," the man murmured, reaching to pull Lirenel to his feet. He was a tall man, he was slender as a reed. His hair was black and chopped into uneven lengths, riddled through with beads, with feathers, with knots and bits and pieces of a life on the road. His coat was Harlequin's own array of shabby ribbons and tattered wool. His eyes.... his eyes....
A wandering minstrel, Lirenel decided, making a meagre living on the road simply because his feet ever ached to see what was beyond the next hill.
"I, too, wander. See what comes next," Lirenel abruptly told the man as he staggered to his feet.
"Do you. Do you wonder what it would be to have a home and hearth?"
"Yes."
"Then come along. Your life shall not be wasted among these killing fields. I am Jack. Jack Scott."
"I pledge you my life for saving me, sir," Lirenel told him. He stood. His gaze skimmed over a horror indescribable before returning to this strange and crooked man.
"Accepted," Jack crowed, his grin sly, "Come along, Lirenel Fael-Danser, Captain. Hold fast my hand. That the hogs and villagers shall not harm what I have worked so hard to save."
It was an odd request, but Lirenel found nothing wrong with it. He gripped Jack's hand, and let the man draw him along mildly as a child. It was strange that as they walked further north, they found no other living people.
"Am I dead, Mr. Scott?" Lirenel inquired politely. Jack shook his head with a grin that forcibly recalled the coyote.
"No, no, lad. You are very much alive, and you shall remain so. There will be other battles for you, and perhaps, with your wisdom, they shall be decisive and without all of this shed blood."
"Where are we going...?"
"To my court, where you shall become my First Knight."
Lirenel's golden brows knit. He looked back to the foul decay of the battle field. After a moment, he nodded, he looked into Jack's eyes. They were dark, studded with all of the stars in the sky. Lirenel could see himself within them. He bowed slowly.
"I have pledged my life to yours."
"And I shall pledge that I will never lead you to such a disaster. You will see to that..."
They passed the crossroads before Lirenel knew they had left the mortal world behind. He did not look back again.
Months later, an ice eyed woman stood sternly in the midst of bone and rotting filth, writing on a thick notebook, recording what three grim black men had to show her.
"This here is a diary saying 'Captain Lirenel Fael-Danser', missus," one of the men called, "Maybe this skull is his, maybe it isn't."
"Presume it is not, Charles, Fael-Danser has no family hoping for remains," the woman responded, "Let us presume it is of Goffrey Henderson."
"Yes'm."
(Loosely based on the ill fated Battle of Chickamauga)
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
- Contact:
Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Jackie VonTombs, by The Redneck (Thorn)
Her family, one and all, loved the water. Often they were more there than on dry land.
This little kitten though, she had another love. And she ran toward it with all the vicious glee her more slightly psychotic heart held.
Chucks slapping on pavement, scrambling up and over concrete, chain link, and wood alike. She caught hold of the slightest ledges, the tiniest spaces for her finger tips, and scrabbled up.
When she came to the edge, to the lip of her horizon and the world fell away into open air for a moment, she leapt.
And in that time, in that heartbeat before gravity took hold again, she crowed in triumphant joy.
Crowed again when she'd tucked and rolled to absorb and dissipate the impact of a landing and turned to look at the ones who'd been too afraid to make the leap.
"It's almost like flying!" And Jackie she dearly loved to fly.
Her family, one and all, loved the water. Often they were more there than on dry land.
This little kitten though, she had another love. And she ran toward it with all the vicious glee her more slightly psychotic heart held.
Chucks slapping on pavement, scrambling up and over concrete, chain link, and wood alike. She caught hold of the slightest ledges, the tiniest spaces for her finger tips, and scrabbled up.
When she came to the edge, to the lip of her horizon and the world fell away into open air for a moment, she leapt.
And in that time, in that heartbeat before gravity took hold again, she crowed in triumphant joy.
Crowed again when she'd tucked and rolled to absorb and dissipate the impact of a landing and turned to look at the ones who'd been too afraid to make the leap.
"It's almost like flying!" And Jackie she dearly loved to fly.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
- Contact:
Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Skid! And a bit of Sal. By Pharlen
The radio was playing. The Red Dragon Inn's powerful tube set randomly pumped tunes out of six beefy speakers, but Skid hadn't ever thought to find the tuner and change the station until it somehow ended up tuned to Volgon-Mania, Poetry 35 hours a day without commercial breaks.
"Thirty five hours a day compressed into twenty four, you people are twisted," Skid muttered, leaning down behind the bar, following the greenish glow of the tubes, "I'd rather listen to static."
Clawed fingers reached for the dial just as some hearty manly sort smacked a fist down to the bar, bellowing for ale. The radio's tuner tube flared brightly green.
"...Oh shit..." Skid hissed.
~Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys...~
Waylon Jennings warbled in the whooshing warp of electric green energy running a lazar helix in bars of illumination, beating to the twang of the music and sweeping Skid away as if he was made of paper, spinning and rolling in two dimensions.
Then he was on a horse. Skid looked down. Sadly, he was not oozing charisma and sex, shirtless and smelling of Old Spice, but upon a sturdy quarter horse under a burning sun, wearing incredibly uncomfortable wool underwear under denims and flannels. The real wonder was how the costume had been tailored to his lanky frame so effortlessly.
Nailed to the song, Skid could only croon along with the backup singers as the posse trotted along in a perfect cadence to the music which resounded from the wind sculpted painted desert stones.
Another smack of beefy fist hit the bar, and the miasmic retro lazar light show, illumination skating over an analog waveform of radio waves, spun Skid away into a giddy world of color and light, landing him without ceremony among mice.
Mice. Wearing clothing. Sewing. Singing.
Skid looked down at himself, wondering where his pants had gone, and then found himself pressed into service as a bearer of beads. He had a choreography to keep up with, and didn't know why.
~Cinderelly, Cinderelly, Night and day, it's Cinderelly, make the fire, fix the breakfast...~
Working on an ugly dress. Did these mice realize that? Or did they just secretly hate this Cinderelly person? Skid mused. It really wasn't so bad that his pants were gone, it was that he didn't seem to have any visible genitals which concerned him. That fact would alarm him quite a lot more if he wasn't so busy with the beads.
The whack of fist resonated through his mind before the inevitable light show, and Skid resigned himself to it, spinning and twisting through the signals before he dropped unceremoniously into a dark, foul smelling cavern.
~Well, I been workin' in a coal mine, going down, down, workin' in a coal mine, whoop about to slip down...~
"Lord, I am so tired.. How long can this go on?" Skid found himself intoning wether he liked it or not – and he rather did, it was a pathos bit of lyrics, both the humorous and sad, while he rhythmically smacked a pick ax to what he presumed was a vein of coal.
Filthy overalls and a carbine powered lamp on his helmet, gloves and thankfully, pants. He couldn't stop to check the state of his genitals, but they felt like they must be there as he swung the pick. Skid was getting into the work when it hit again, rushing and slipping along the frequencies in a nimbus of graphed line work and energy.
Without a stumble, Skid found himself pacing the catwalk. Stark light pinned his every move, flashing cameras twinkled like stars in a dull universe of smokey darkness and leering faces. His genitals were proudly back and displayed under a packaging of excruciatingly tight patterned denim trousers with a large star on the crotch.
~I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love, love's going to leave me. I'm too sexy for my shirt...~
On cue, Skid tore the flimsy cotton undershirt from his body and shook his groove thang at the end of the runway, tossing the discarded shirt to the screaming girls appealing to him. He was a bit disgruntled when the next thump cast him away into the aether of the radio, until he found himself in the passenger seat of a long, sleek Cadillac convertible.
The silver jumpsuit he now wore glittered, but Elvis's was even shinier.
~Since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell. It's down at the end of lonely street, at Heartbreak Hotel...~
The scenery they passed was distinctly impressionistic post world war one German, but as the song ran, as the Cadillac ran, like flexing from a rotoscope of a black and white city into color, then reality, Skid realized that he recognized his surroundings.
Memphis, Tennessee. There really was Heartbreak Hotel at the end of Lonely Street. Elvis stopped the car and nodded to Skid as he swung from the car, resplendent in fringe and silver to stride up the steps leading to the most infamous hotel in the world outside of the Overlook.
Consumed with curiosity in the silence that had fallen, Skid didn't notice the bright and cheerful voiceover pitching the virtues of Pond's Soap, which by using regularly would prevent one from becoming a resident at the Heartbreak Hotel.
Skid hurried after Elvis, stepped through the door and into free fall. It was cold. Dark. Icy. Smelled like old bologna, Velveeta cheese, and sour baking soda.
The fridge door opened, and Skid tumbled out, falling in a silver jump suited heap to the kitchen floor of the Red Dragon Inn. He blinked several times to Salvador, who stared back at Skid, uncertain whether to be displeased or amused as hell.
"Skid...?" Salvador asked, deciding to reserve his opinion until there was some sort of explanation to be had. Skid unfolded himself and dragged Salvador to the common room, leaning down to peer at the radio.
"You have GOT to try this!"
The radio was playing. The Red Dragon Inn's powerful tube set randomly pumped tunes out of six beefy speakers, but Skid hadn't ever thought to find the tuner and change the station until it somehow ended up tuned to Volgon-Mania, Poetry 35 hours a day without commercial breaks.
"Thirty five hours a day compressed into twenty four, you people are twisted," Skid muttered, leaning down behind the bar, following the greenish glow of the tubes, "I'd rather listen to static."
Clawed fingers reached for the dial just as some hearty manly sort smacked a fist down to the bar, bellowing for ale. The radio's tuner tube flared brightly green.
"...Oh shit..." Skid hissed.
~Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys...~
Waylon Jennings warbled in the whooshing warp of electric green energy running a lazar helix in bars of illumination, beating to the twang of the music and sweeping Skid away as if he was made of paper, spinning and rolling in two dimensions.
Then he was on a horse. Skid looked down. Sadly, he was not oozing charisma and sex, shirtless and smelling of Old Spice, but upon a sturdy quarter horse under a burning sun, wearing incredibly uncomfortable wool underwear under denims and flannels. The real wonder was how the costume had been tailored to his lanky frame so effortlessly.
Nailed to the song, Skid could only croon along with the backup singers as the posse trotted along in a perfect cadence to the music which resounded from the wind sculpted painted desert stones.
Another smack of beefy fist hit the bar, and the miasmic retro lazar light show, illumination skating over an analog waveform of radio waves, spun Skid away into a giddy world of color and light, landing him without ceremony among mice.
Mice. Wearing clothing. Sewing. Singing.
Skid looked down at himself, wondering where his pants had gone, and then found himself pressed into service as a bearer of beads. He had a choreography to keep up with, and didn't know why.
~Cinderelly, Cinderelly, Night and day, it's Cinderelly, make the fire, fix the breakfast...~
Working on an ugly dress. Did these mice realize that? Or did they just secretly hate this Cinderelly person? Skid mused. It really wasn't so bad that his pants were gone, it was that he didn't seem to have any visible genitals which concerned him. That fact would alarm him quite a lot more if he wasn't so busy with the beads.
The whack of fist resonated through his mind before the inevitable light show, and Skid resigned himself to it, spinning and twisting through the signals before he dropped unceremoniously into a dark, foul smelling cavern.
~Well, I been workin' in a coal mine, going down, down, workin' in a coal mine, whoop about to slip down...~
"Lord, I am so tired.. How long can this go on?" Skid found himself intoning wether he liked it or not – and he rather did, it was a pathos bit of lyrics, both the humorous and sad, while he rhythmically smacked a pick ax to what he presumed was a vein of coal.
Filthy overalls and a carbine powered lamp on his helmet, gloves and thankfully, pants. He couldn't stop to check the state of his genitals, but they felt like they must be there as he swung the pick. Skid was getting into the work when it hit again, rushing and slipping along the frequencies in a nimbus of graphed line work and energy.
Without a stumble, Skid found himself pacing the catwalk. Stark light pinned his every move, flashing cameras twinkled like stars in a dull universe of smokey darkness and leering faces. His genitals were proudly back and displayed under a packaging of excruciatingly tight patterned denim trousers with a large star on the crotch.
~I'm too sexy for my love, too sexy for my love, love's going to leave me. I'm too sexy for my shirt...~
On cue, Skid tore the flimsy cotton undershirt from his body and shook his groove thang at the end of the runway, tossing the discarded shirt to the screaming girls appealing to him. He was a bit disgruntled when the next thump cast him away into the aether of the radio, until he found himself in the passenger seat of a long, sleek Cadillac convertible.
The silver jumpsuit he now wore glittered, but Elvis's was even shinier.
~Since my baby left me, I found a new place to dwell. It's down at the end of lonely street, at Heartbreak Hotel...~
The scenery they passed was distinctly impressionistic post world war one German, but as the song ran, as the Cadillac ran, like flexing from a rotoscope of a black and white city into color, then reality, Skid realized that he recognized his surroundings.
Memphis, Tennessee. There really was Heartbreak Hotel at the end of Lonely Street. Elvis stopped the car and nodded to Skid as he swung from the car, resplendent in fringe and silver to stride up the steps leading to the most infamous hotel in the world outside of the Overlook.
Consumed with curiosity in the silence that had fallen, Skid didn't notice the bright and cheerful voiceover pitching the virtues of Pond's Soap, which by using regularly would prevent one from becoming a resident at the Heartbreak Hotel.
Skid hurried after Elvis, stepped through the door and into free fall. It was cold. Dark. Icy. Smelled like old bologna, Velveeta cheese, and sour baking soda.
The fridge door opened, and Skid tumbled out, falling in a silver jump suited heap to the kitchen floor of the Red Dragon Inn. He blinked several times to Salvador, who stared back at Skid, uncertain whether to be displeased or amused as hell.
"Skid...?" Salvador asked, deciding to reserve his opinion until there was some sort of explanation to be had. Skid unfolded himself and dragged Salvador to the common room, leaning down to peer at the radio.
"You have GOT to try this!"
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
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- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Desdenova VonTombs by The Redneck (Thorn)
They played pretend a lot. They were awesome at playing pretend. He and his mother.
Every day they'd pretend she wasn't so worried about him she wanted to put him in some sort of bubble, or under some sort of super-uber protective spell to keep him from so much as stubbing a toe. She smiled and waved and raged in all the right places. Threatened the seat of his pants, his life at all the right times.
But he could see, in the faintest shadows that hid behind those morganite eyes, the strain and worry. Could feel it, in the barely restrained forward surge when he stumbled (sometimes he did it on purpose just to see if she could keep holding back), the need to gather him close and keep him there. Could taste it when the fear tangled itself in like a choking vine and let its bitter, acrid taint hit the air. Could hear it in the pride she took, even when he was an outright ass (again, intentionally most of the time, just to see, just to push).
He sort of enjoyed their game, the unspoken spin and turn and dip and whirl of it. He enjoyed pushing the line and asking for, or demanding, more freedom. Because he knew she'd wind up almost panicky, drive herself into a fit trying to figure out if saying no was all right, or if it'd send him back to the graveyard.
They played pretend a lot. He and his mother. They played it well.
Sometimes, he even believed Desdenova Von Tombs really was still alive.
They played pretend a lot. They were awesome at playing pretend. He and his mother.
Every day they'd pretend she wasn't so worried about him she wanted to put him in some sort of bubble, or under some sort of super-uber protective spell to keep him from so much as stubbing a toe. She smiled and waved and raged in all the right places. Threatened the seat of his pants, his life at all the right times.
But he could see, in the faintest shadows that hid behind those morganite eyes, the strain and worry. Could feel it, in the barely restrained forward surge when he stumbled (sometimes he did it on purpose just to see if she could keep holding back), the need to gather him close and keep him there. Could taste it when the fear tangled itself in like a choking vine and let its bitter, acrid taint hit the air. Could hear it in the pride she took, even when he was an outright ass (again, intentionally most of the time, just to see, just to push).
He sort of enjoyed their game, the unspoken spin and turn and dip and whirl of it. He enjoyed pushing the line and asking for, or demanding, more freedom. Because he knew she'd wind up almost panicky, drive herself into a fit trying to figure out if saying no was all right, or if it'd send him back to the graveyard.
They played pretend a lot. He and his mother. They played it well.
Sometimes, he even believed Desdenova Von Tombs really was still alive.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
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Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Darcy and Ebon Ilnaren by Pharlen
Once more, I know more about history than specific characters, so in today's installment of Walking A Mile, Ebon Ilnaren is now Lt. Ilnaren of the 23 Headquarter's Special Troops, and Lovely Darcy is now Captain Darcy Obuvishkala of the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Night fell. It was then that spirits of evil flowed from the earth to wreak their havoc, to take their vengeance upon the ills of daytime, when the baen sidhe screamed, when the harpies flew.
Captain Darcy Obuvishkala stood at attention with her sisters as their mother paced their line, attending calmly the orders for the night.
"Lay each bomb carefully upon your targets, comrades, for each is a full measure of the tears of mothers and brides. Bring honor to our fallen comrades and let none take you alive," the senior lieutenant barked. She nodded to the crisp salutes of her girls and turned from them.
"Fly well, my witches."
Darcy turned to her relic, her cherished wings, her backhanded afterthought of an aircraft – an aged and underpowered Polikarpov PO-2. A radial engine open cockpit bi-plane, it was never a cutting edge machine, only ever intended for peacetime applications. A trainer and crop duster, it was exceptionally maneuverable, and that was something she had learned to make serve her.
Six bombs, all she could carry in a single trip, awaited their moment. She promised them a glorious end, she promised them each a piece of vengeance for her people, her country. She nodded to her mechanic, smiling as the propeller spun with a cough, as the engine kicked to life.
Bullets sprayed from the oncoming guns of a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and she smiled, making a rude gesture as the craft blazed past her. There were no guns on her PO-2, but she didn't need them.
Darcy pulled the stick and sent the biplane spiraling upwards, a tease that the German pilots never were able to resist. The Fw 190 finally managed to turn and came roaring after the antiquated bi-plane, firing uselessly. It was too fast, the PO-2 too slow.
Darcy turned, grinning. This game of chicken, she was always fated to win. The Fw 190 struggled to wing back to the old craft, only having seconds to fire at it before it was past it once more. Each turn that the fighter craft had to make, Darcy pulled up higher.
The German pilot was so focussed on shooting the aged plane down, he never noticed. Finally, where the air began to thin, Darcy put the bi-plane into a flat-spin dive, like a wounded bird flopping helplessly. The German arced into a dive to follow the craft down. To riddle it full of bullets, to kill the hated pilot, to see it burn gloriously all the way to hell. He didn't notice that the bi-plane was running just as well as it had to start with, and hadn't a single hole in the canvas and wood skin.
The bi-plane pulled out of the dive with yards to spare, the fighter pilot howled as he realized he'd been drawn into a deadly game, his craft barreling into the treetops and plowing into the forest with a brief explosion on impact.
"Thus ever to the wicked," Darcy smirked cold acid as she resumed her course. The ground artillery could shoot her down. But only if they could see and hear her. Darcy reached out and turned her engine off. She glided in near silence.
It was a lovely mess already, her sisters had been before her. The enemy encampment was a divine shambles of fire and chaos. With a kiss blown for each bomb dropped, she added injury to insult. The PO-2 glided on.
Darcy swung from the cockpit and climbed over the nose of the craft. With a mighty heave, she hauled the propeller over, once more starting the engine. With a cocky grin at the beleaguered camp below, she scrambled back to her seat, and soared away.
She had more bombs to drop, more hell to raise, more vengeance to spew...
And a Messerschmidt Bf-109 was behind her. Furious, the German pilot did all he could to shoot the little bi-plane down, but it was pitifully slow, and his craft was striking lightning.
Darcy fancied she could hear the man's cursing as he tore past her. She quickly lowered altitude, skimming just over the trees. She could dip and flirt among the tree tops, the Messerschmidt would be forced higher, and give him no window of opportunity to shoot at her effectively.
The Bf-109 turned back, determined to knock this little fury from the sky. This time, a few bullets laced over the wings, but once more, it could not fly any slower or risk stalling. Darcy waggled her tongue lewdly after the powerful craft.
The German was pushing her further and further south. His turning radius was good, and the pilot was determined. Darcy was as determined to lead him away from the routes her sister witches would take.
All at once, shell fire burst before Darcy. She snarled, realizing too late she'd been pushed into a confrontation with the ground artillery. A shell tore across her fuselage. Another struck her upper wing. She turned.
To her amazement, a Lightning P-38 was alongside her in RAF colors. She could briefly see the pilot grinning at her. Then, she cheered as the light bomber obliterated the ground artillery in a single run, the swift and sleek Mustang P-51s accompanying it taking down the Messerschmidt in short order.
Glorious, except that her adventure had run her little PO-2 out of fuel. Darcy grimly turned the craft, following a river northwards, but despite her best efforts, she was soon gliding. The glide deteriorated until she had no choice but to land.
A small town, dark and probably abandoned, seemed her best hope. Darcy bit her lower lip, already hearing the scolding that the senior lieutenant would give her for letting herself be driven off course. She had to, she couldn't lead the German back to their airfield. She couldn't lead him back to the other craft going on their runs.
She exhaled, head thumped to the dash board. A shell burst not a half block away. Yelping, Darcy scrambled from her plane. Another shell screamed and thudded into an already half-destroyed building.
What were these German madmen, the town was already destroyed, why were they shelling it? Just to get her? They couldn't have seen her land there! Darcy scrambled for cover, and there seemed to be none. She could only stare into the dark sky in horror. She was pinned down.
The low, hungry roar of an American motorcycle startled Darcy. She turned to watch a man in uniform drive the beast in, lights off, and moving fast. Before she could so much as pick out the insignia on his gas tank, the man had snatched her from her feet and flung her behind him onto the panniers side saddle.
"Hang on," he grunted. Darcy was no fool. She hung on, pulling her goggles back over her eyes. It was a wild course through a violent battlefield in the dark. Shells rained down, gunfire sounded, men yelled, horses screamed, it was a waking nightmare where every moment, Darcy expected to slam into a tree or to find a mine exploding beneath them.
She could make out the American unit finally, and she gave a hoarse cheer of joy. The Americans, so bold, so big, so fearless, ruthless, they were a juggernaut with war machines only slightly smaller and less impressive than the Soviet creations.
Tanks, she could see a line of them, and closed her eyes for a moment to imagine them rolling forth, crushing the Germans before them, impervious beasts...
"Blackie, you pull that again, and million voices or not, I'll bust your ass to chief corporal of the honey bucket!" a man yelled, outraged and proud both as the motorcycle pulled into a circle of trucks.
"Had to, Art, chickie went down right in the target town," Lieutenant Ilnaren protested, turning to help Darcy off of his bike.
"...That's a woman," Art sputtered.
"Russkie woman," Ilnaren agreed.
Darcy eyed the men with a toss of her head.
"I am Captain Darcy Obuvishkala, of the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. I was driven from my mission, and shot down," she informed them haughtily. A woman soldier was not a chickie. She was a woman soldier.
"Don't matter who she was, she's ours now," an older man called, "Word's come down, let's bug out. Captain Obuvishkala, welcome to the 23rd Headquarter's Special Troops."
"...I cannot stay here, I must return to my regiment!" Darcy complained even as the men began to swarm around the campsite.
"Captain, you have a choice. Join us or be shipped to the States to wait out the war," Ilanaren informed her, running his motorcycle up into one of the trucks.
Darcy was speechless. But then she watched as the mighty row of tanks...
...Deflated.
They were fake. It was all fake. They had drawn enemy fire to a town that was empty.
Lt. Ilnaren pulled Darcy to one of the radio trucks, letting her find a seat while he fired up the small broadcast radio. She watched in amazement as his laconic Midwestern accent turned to frenetic Italian.
Days later, an archly crooning woman taunted the German's between popular tunes. Darcy glanced at Ilnaren, grinning, as she read off his script.
The night witch had become a ghost.
Once more, I know more about history than specific characters, so in today's installment of Walking A Mile, Ebon Ilnaren is now Lt. Ilnaren of the 23 Headquarter's Special Troops, and Lovely Darcy is now Captain Darcy Obuvishkala of the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Night fell. It was then that spirits of evil flowed from the earth to wreak their havoc, to take their vengeance upon the ills of daytime, when the baen sidhe screamed, when the harpies flew.
Captain Darcy Obuvishkala stood at attention with her sisters as their mother paced their line, attending calmly the orders for the night.
"Lay each bomb carefully upon your targets, comrades, for each is a full measure of the tears of mothers and brides. Bring honor to our fallen comrades and let none take you alive," the senior lieutenant barked. She nodded to the crisp salutes of her girls and turned from them.
"Fly well, my witches."
Darcy turned to her relic, her cherished wings, her backhanded afterthought of an aircraft – an aged and underpowered Polikarpov PO-2. A radial engine open cockpit bi-plane, it was never a cutting edge machine, only ever intended for peacetime applications. A trainer and crop duster, it was exceptionally maneuverable, and that was something she had learned to make serve her.
Six bombs, all she could carry in a single trip, awaited their moment. She promised them a glorious end, she promised them each a piece of vengeance for her people, her country. She nodded to her mechanic, smiling as the propeller spun with a cough, as the engine kicked to life.
Bullets sprayed from the oncoming guns of a Focke-Wulf Fw 190, and she smiled, making a rude gesture as the craft blazed past her. There were no guns on her PO-2, but she didn't need them.
Darcy pulled the stick and sent the biplane spiraling upwards, a tease that the German pilots never were able to resist. The Fw 190 finally managed to turn and came roaring after the antiquated bi-plane, firing uselessly. It was too fast, the PO-2 too slow.
Darcy turned, grinning. This game of chicken, she was always fated to win. The Fw 190 struggled to wing back to the old craft, only having seconds to fire at it before it was past it once more. Each turn that the fighter craft had to make, Darcy pulled up higher.
The German pilot was so focussed on shooting the aged plane down, he never noticed. Finally, where the air began to thin, Darcy put the bi-plane into a flat-spin dive, like a wounded bird flopping helplessly. The German arced into a dive to follow the craft down. To riddle it full of bullets, to kill the hated pilot, to see it burn gloriously all the way to hell. He didn't notice that the bi-plane was running just as well as it had to start with, and hadn't a single hole in the canvas and wood skin.
The bi-plane pulled out of the dive with yards to spare, the fighter pilot howled as he realized he'd been drawn into a deadly game, his craft barreling into the treetops and plowing into the forest with a brief explosion on impact.
"Thus ever to the wicked," Darcy smirked cold acid as she resumed her course. The ground artillery could shoot her down. But only if they could see and hear her. Darcy reached out and turned her engine off. She glided in near silence.
It was a lovely mess already, her sisters had been before her. The enemy encampment was a divine shambles of fire and chaos. With a kiss blown for each bomb dropped, she added injury to insult. The PO-2 glided on.
Darcy swung from the cockpit and climbed over the nose of the craft. With a mighty heave, she hauled the propeller over, once more starting the engine. With a cocky grin at the beleaguered camp below, she scrambled back to her seat, and soared away.
She had more bombs to drop, more hell to raise, more vengeance to spew...
And a Messerschmidt Bf-109 was behind her. Furious, the German pilot did all he could to shoot the little bi-plane down, but it was pitifully slow, and his craft was striking lightning.
Darcy fancied she could hear the man's cursing as he tore past her. She quickly lowered altitude, skimming just over the trees. She could dip and flirt among the tree tops, the Messerschmidt would be forced higher, and give him no window of opportunity to shoot at her effectively.
The Bf-109 turned back, determined to knock this little fury from the sky. This time, a few bullets laced over the wings, but once more, it could not fly any slower or risk stalling. Darcy waggled her tongue lewdly after the powerful craft.
The German was pushing her further and further south. His turning radius was good, and the pilot was determined. Darcy was as determined to lead him away from the routes her sister witches would take.
All at once, shell fire burst before Darcy. She snarled, realizing too late she'd been pushed into a confrontation with the ground artillery. A shell tore across her fuselage. Another struck her upper wing. She turned.
To her amazement, a Lightning P-38 was alongside her in RAF colors. She could briefly see the pilot grinning at her. Then, she cheered as the light bomber obliterated the ground artillery in a single run, the swift and sleek Mustang P-51s accompanying it taking down the Messerschmidt in short order.
Glorious, except that her adventure had run her little PO-2 out of fuel. Darcy grimly turned the craft, following a river northwards, but despite her best efforts, she was soon gliding. The glide deteriorated until she had no choice but to land.
A small town, dark and probably abandoned, seemed her best hope. Darcy bit her lower lip, already hearing the scolding that the senior lieutenant would give her for letting herself be driven off course. She had to, she couldn't lead the German back to their airfield. She couldn't lead him back to the other craft going on their runs.
She exhaled, head thumped to the dash board. A shell burst not a half block away. Yelping, Darcy scrambled from her plane. Another shell screamed and thudded into an already half-destroyed building.
What were these German madmen, the town was already destroyed, why were they shelling it? Just to get her? They couldn't have seen her land there! Darcy scrambled for cover, and there seemed to be none. She could only stare into the dark sky in horror. She was pinned down.
The low, hungry roar of an American motorcycle startled Darcy. She turned to watch a man in uniform drive the beast in, lights off, and moving fast. Before she could so much as pick out the insignia on his gas tank, the man had snatched her from her feet and flung her behind him onto the panniers side saddle.
"Hang on," he grunted. Darcy was no fool. She hung on, pulling her goggles back over her eyes. It was a wild course through a violent battlefield in the dark. Shells rained down, gunfire sounded, men yelled, horses screamed, it was a waking nightmare where every moment, Darcy expected to slam into a tree or to find a mine exploding beneath them.
She could make out the American unit finally, and she gave a hoarse cheer of joy. The Americans, so bold, so big, so fearless, ruthless, they were a juggernaut with war machines only slightly smaller and less impressive than the Soviet creations.
Tanks, she could see a line of them, and closed her eyes for a moment to imagine them rolling forth, crushing the Germans before them, impervious beasts...
"Blackie, you pull that again, and million voices or not, I'll bust your ass to chief corporal of the honey bucket!" a man yelled, outraged and proud both as the motorcycle pulled into a circle of trucks.
"Had to, Art, chickie went down right in the target town," Lieutenant Ilnaren protested, turning to help Darcy off of his bike.
"...That's a woman," Art sputtered.
"Russkie woman," Ilnaren agreed.
Darcy eyed the men with a toss of her head.
"I am Captain Darcy Obuvishkala, of the 46th Taman Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment. I was driven from my mission, and shot down," she informed them haughtily. A woman soldier was not a chickie. She was a woman soldier.
"Don't matter who she was, she's ours now," an older man called, "Word's come down, let's bug out. Captain Obuvishkala, welcome to the 23rd Headquarter's Special Troops."
"...I cannot stay here, I must return to my regiment!" Darcy complained even as the men began to swarm around the campsite.
"Captain, you have a choice. Join us or be shipped to the States to wait out the war," Ilanaren informed her, running his motorcycle up into one of the trucks.
Darcy was speechless. But then she watched as the mighty row of tanks...
...Deflated.
They were fake. It was all fake. They had drawn enemy fire to a town that was empty.
Lt. Ilnaren pulled Darcy to one of the radio trucks, letting her find a seat while he fired up the small broadcast radio. She watched in amazement as his laconic Midwestern accent turned to frenetic Italian.
Days later, an archly crooning woman taunted the German's between popular tunes. Darcy glanced at Ilnaren, grinning, as she read off his script.
The night witch had become a ghost.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Thorn by Aoife
Bacon. Eggs. Smothered and covered hash. Toasted sourdough bread soaked through with butter. Pancakes. Steak. Apple pie fresh pulled from the oven. Last night’s chili leftover aroma and the savory smell of fresh brewed coffee. The place was a 1950’s train car diner dream come true plucked clean from some small town in the middle-of-nowhere USA and dropped on a street corner in the heart of the city.
Every trip-trap leg crossing swagger had a song that went with it, a tune that slapped a memory in place. Hers carried with it warmth, cheer, and the sweet chime of bells. Perhaps a little something more left behind if one looked hard enough. If this redneck didn’t know a name, she sure as hell moved on from most conversations with one. A name, a place, and a story.
“What can I get y’?” She asked in a lazy lean across the counter. Her voice rang clear over the din of the early morning crowd.
The man lifted his empty mug. “How’s the world treating you today?”
“ ’M doin’ damn good. Yourself?” Steam twisted about itself when she poured.
His answer was riding the high of lasting at least ten minutes but she wrapped it up in less than two leaving him with a smile and an impish wink. The man was none the wiser.
She stopped at a table with two women, curvy hip cocked to the side held in place by a hand. They were less than covered by clothes with shadows in their eyes, going through the motions of the day until night called them back to work. A short round of minutes later, their meals came warm, minus a check, with sound words that fed dreams and nurtured hope.
The little girl in the booth lost in tears found her smile when the whipped cream on her cocoa grew three sizes and her pancakes came in the shape of hearts. A quad of biddies in the corner ate their words. The cocky bastard with the cigarette nursed his pride and left her the biggest tip of them all.
Words found their way easy for her, riddles cast aside. They were as real as she was. Thorn was never short of a lip curl that tickled dimples and radiated warmth in amethyst eyes.
Just don’t get on her bad side.
(Lady, I hope you like! Thanks to my anon helpers too!)
Bacon. Eggs. Smothered and covered hash. Toasted sourdough bread soaked through with butter. Pancakes. Steak. Apple pie fresh pulled from the oven. Last night’s chili leftover aroma and the savory smell of fresh brewed coffee. The place was a 1950’s train car diner dream come true plucked clean from some small town in the middle-of-nowhere USA and dropped on a street corner in the heart of the city.
Every trip-trap leg crossing swagger had a song that went with it, a tune that slapped a memory in place. Hers carried with it warmth, cheer, and the sweet chime of bells. Perhaps a little something more left behind if one looked hard enough. If this redneck didn’t know a name, she sure as hell moved on from most conversations with one. A name, a place, and a story.
“What can I get y’?” She asked in a lazy lean across the counter. Her voice rang clear over the din of the early morning crowd.
The man lifted his empty mug. “How’s the world treating you today?”
“ ’M doin’ damn good. Yourself?” Steam twisted about itself when she poured.
His answer was riding the high of lasting at least ten minutes but she wrapped it up in less than two leaving him with a smile and an impish wink. The man was none the wiser.
She stopped at a table with two women, curvy hip cocked to the side held in place by a hand. They were less than covered by clothes with shadows in their eyes, going through the motions of the day until night called them back to work. A short round of minutes later, their meals came warm, minus a check, with sound words that fed dreams and nurtured hope.
The little girl in the booth lost in tears found her smile when the whipped cream on her cocoa grew three sizes and her pancakes came in the shape of hearts. A quad of biddies in the corner ate their words. The cocky bastard with the cigarette nursed his pride and left her the biggest tip of them all.
Words found their way easy for her, riddles cast aside. They were as real as she was. Thorn was never short of a lip curl that tickled dimples and radiated warmth in amethyst eyes.
Just don’t get on her bad side.
(Lady, I hope you like! Thanks to my anon helpers too!)
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
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- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
- Contact:
Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Rei by The Redneck (Thorn)
He needed. Gods damnit he needed. Needed to reach out. Needed to vent. Needed to rage and tear the hells out of things.
He needed a shoulder, a sympathetic ear. Someone to listen who didn't think he was weak or a sniveling little bitch for being who and what he was. He needed a chance. He needed.
Vith, he needed a drink. Maybe a fight. Some beast to hunt across impossible terrain to prove himself. Someone to take his hand and soothe his brow. Smooth all that silver away from his eyes and tell him it'd be okay, even though it wouldn't.
He needed to understand. He needed to go back and try, one more time, to listen and hear. And be heard and understood. He needed the weight of his love beside him in a bed he himself had chosen to leave. He needed something to go back and slap him stupid before he opened his mouth all those times.
He needed to find them, one or the other, or both in turns, and kick them until they listened and understood. He needed to burn it all down. Burn it to ash because then maybe, just fucking maybe he'd be heard, and maybe he'd matter enough to, matter.
He needed to know what to do tomorrow or the next day or the next, when he wouldn't be able to go back to the bed they shared. He needed to stop worrying about how many of His friends he'd lose when they heard, whatever they were told. He needed to stop wishing on those falling, fallen stars.
"Oh, vith. What have I done?" Murmured aghast as the tracker let his forehead rest against the steam choked reflection in the mirror.
He needed to understand.
Somewhere, as Autumn's reach and hold crept deeper and tighter. Where a veil and curtain parted to let the power of She Who Tends rush and flood into a fae-child, words were whispered in an echo.
“You are a frightened child looking for comfort where you will find none.”
And looking into the eyes of his own reflection, Rei let the grief and mourning take hold. Watched helplessly as his own face crumpled and the eyes that were so very much his mothers fill and overflow with tears.
He needed. Gods damnit he needed. Needed to reach out. Needed to vent. Needed to rage and tear the hells out of things.
He needed a shoulder, a sympathetic ear. Someone to listen who didn't think he was weak or a sniveling little bitch for being who and what he was. He needed a chance. He needed.
Vith, he needed a drink. Maybe a fight. Some beast to hunt across impossible terrain to prove himself. Someone to take his hand and soothe his brow. Smooth all that silver away from his eyes and tell him it'd be okay, even though it wouldn't.
He needed to understand. He needed to go back and try, one more time, to listen and hear. And be heard and understood. He needed the weight of his love beside him in a bed he himself had chosen to leave. He needed something to go back and slap him stupid before he opened his mouth all those times.
He needed to find them, one or the other, or both in turns, and kick them until they listened and understood. He needed to burn it all down. Burn it to ash because then maybe, just fucking maybe he'd be heard, and maybe he'd matter enough to, matter.
He needed to know what to do tomorrow or the next day or the next, when he wouldn't be able to go back to the bed they shared. He needed to stop worrying about how many of His friends he'd lose when they heard, whatever they were told. He needed to stop wishing on those falling, fallen stars.
"Oh, vith. What have I done?" Murmured aghast as the tracker let his forehead rest against the steam choked reflection in the mirror.
He needed to understand.
Somewhere, as Autumn's reach and hold crept deeper and tighter. Where a veil and curtain parted to let the power of She Who Tends rush and flood into a fae-child, words were whispered in an echo.
“You are a frightened child looking for comfort where you will find none.”
And looking into the eyes of his own reflection, Rei let the grief and mourning take hold. Watched helplessly as his own face crumpled and the eyes that were so very much his mothers fill and overflow with tears.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
-
Pharlen
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- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
- Location: Hollywood, CA
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Jak Siv by TheRedneck (Thorn)
He really wasn't all that bright. Then again, he didn't have to be. Wasn't supposed to be.
If he was smart enough, smart at all, he might figure out the truth. And if that happened, it would all unravel, all fall apart. Fall apart and be nothing more than wasted effort and useless sacrifice.
Sometimes though, sometimes a person could see it. If they looked just right at just the right moment. Catch a glimpse of the Beast caught and trapped within.
The monstrosity caged in weak flesh and weaker abilities.
The sister they'd been forced to Bind and Trap and Confine and Jail. The malice and intelligence that peered blindly out of golden eyes in just the right light, at just the right moment.
If he'd been built to be stronger, he'd fight that shadow presence in his mind. If he was smarter, he might decide to let her rule and run rampant instead of letting her have her moments of pain and blood and sex when she used his body to be mounted and ridden to a frothing finish that ripped screams out of both of their throats at once. If she'd been more aware, she might have been able to use that pain, that energy, and that humiliation to power her escape.
He'd been built for this, from the spark of life up, built to be her prison. Even when he slipped between one style and the other, she was there. Even when he spun his fine and fanciful tales about having a choice and making a decision, the truth was there. Like a sharp edged pebble rolling around in a shoe.
Jak Siv wasn't very smart at all. But then again, prisons didn't need to be all that self-aware.
He really wasn't all that bright. Then again, he didn't have to be. Wasn't supposed to be.
If he was smart enough, smart at all, he might figure out the truth. And if that happened, it would all unravel, all fall apart. Fall apart and be nothing more than wasted effort and useless sacrifice.
Sometimes though, sometimes a person could see it. If they looked just right at just the right moment. Catch a glimpse of the Beast caught and trapped within.
The monstrosity caged in weak flesh and weaker abilities.
The sister they'd been forced to Bind and Trap and Confine and Jail. The malice and intelligence that peered blindly out of golden eyes in just the right light, at just the right moment.
If he'd been built to be stronger, he'd fight that shadow presence in his mind. If he was smarter, he might decide to let her rule and run rampant instead of letting her have her moments of pain and blood and sex when she used his body to be mounted and ridden to a frothing finish that ripped screams out of both of their throats at once. If she'd been more aware, she might have been able to use that pain, that energy, and that humiliation to power her escape.
He'd been built for this, from the spark of life up, built to be her prison. Even when he slipped between one style and the other, she was there. Even when he spun his fine and fanciful tales about having a choice and making a decision, the truth was there. Like a sharp edged pebble rolling around in a shoe.
Jak Siv wasn't very smart at all. But then again, prisons didn't need to be all that self-aware.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
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Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Karma (Strawberry) by Pharlen
"Where am I going?"
Karma spoke, and her voice echoed over time, child to adult and back again. Child. Her hand was fitted into a grown up hand. It was warm, gentle, calloused in the passing of time, in the use of things and the grasping of straws.
"Where are we going, dear child?"
The grown up answered in a soft and weary sing song of voice. Too long had screamed, too long had crooned honied words, had gone flat speaking the truth, and become sharp with the facts.
"But, you are the adult..." Little Karma pointed out. She looked up, and up and it seemed forever up, to see the face of the woman holding her hand. As if Karma shrank and the woman grew, until her head was above the mountain peaks and shrouded in the clouds, and she, Karma, was a tiny mouse scurrying to keep up with the Mountain Woman.
"That doesn't matter, Karma. Where are we going?"
Where was she going? Karma exhaled forever, deflated, and found herself sitting on the edge of a cliff with the Mountain Woman sitting beside her. The grown up's head still within the high cirrus clouds, her feet probably touched the ground forever ways down.
Karma giggled. Her grown up friend had certainly grown up.
"I suppose we are going to where we are safe. I would like to go home, but home isn't ours any more," Karma pointed out slowly.
The Mountain Woman nodded. Karma could sense it more than see it. She could sense how strange and distant her words made the grown up's heart and mind. As if she'd said something wrong that shouldn't be spoken of, but then there were new and other thoughts in Karma's head.
Tell when things are wrong. Speak up. Say. Silence it the Enemy.
So, lifting her chin in defiance, Little Karma spoke up.
"I would like to make our home now. My home. I will make my home now."
These things caused landslides, an avalanche, mud sliding downwards, but it wasn't mud or dirt or snow. It was the visible emotion, it was the hidden pain, it was...
Everything.
Karma's eyes closed. When the falls had ceased, she opened them and found herself looking at herself.
She smiled, and so did the Mountain Woman.
"Let's go," Karma whispered, taking the woman's hand.
And they walked.
"Where am I going?"
Karma spoke, and her voice echoed over time, child to adult and back again. Child. Her hand was fitted into a grown up hand. It was warm, gentle, calloused in the passing of time, in the use of things and the grasping of straws.
"Where are we going, dear child?"
The grown up answered in a soft and weary sing song of voice. Too long had screamed, too long had crooned honied words, had gone flat speaking the truth, and become sharp with the facts.
"But, you are the adult..." Little Karma pointed out. She looked up, and up and it seemed forever up, to see the face of the woman holding her hand. As if Karma shrank and the woman grew, until her head was above the mountain peaks and shrouded in the clouds, and she, Karma, was a tiny mouse scurrying to keep up with the Mountain Woman.
"That doesn't matter, Karma. Where are we going?"
Where was she going? Karma exhaled forever, deflated, and found herself sitting on the edge of a cliff with the Mountain Woman sitting beside her. The grown up's head still within the high cirrus clouds, her feet probably touched the ground forever ways down.
Karma giggled. Her grown up friend had certainly grown up.
"I suppose we are going to where we are safe. I would like to go home, but home isn't ours any more," Karma pointed out slowly.
The Mountain Woman nodded. Karma could sense it more than see it. She could sense how strange and distant her words made the grown up's heart and mind. As if she'd said something wrong that shouldn't be spoken of, but then there were new and other thoughts in Karma's head.
Tell when things are wrong. Speak up. Say. Silence it the Enemy.
So, lifting her chin in defiance, Little Karma spoke up.
"I would like to make our home now. My home. I will make my home now."
These things caused landslides, an avalanche, mud sliding downwards, but it wasn't mud or dirt or snow. It was the visible emotion, it was the hidden pain, it was...
Everything.
Karma's eyes closed. When the falls had ceased, she opened them and found herself looking at herself.
She smiled, and so did the Mountain Woman.
"Let's go," Karma whispered, taking the woman's hand.
And they walked.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
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Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
- Posts: 323
- Joined: Sat Jun 23, 2018 10:35 pm
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Strange Legends of the Trenches: Canaan
(Very long tale, and if it seems I might use the setting again, then you are correct, I might. I have borrowed Canaan for this outing, if you would like to borrow the Cajun, please ask them!)
It was the third, or second, perhaps forth time that they had retaken Mametz. He wondered often what the hell was going through the minds of the high command only to laugh at himself. He waded through a soup of corpses, following the rest of the ragged unit of Americans, English, and Welsh back to the accursed town.
Remarkably, there were still living beings in the small French town. They took refuge under their church, as so many did, even while questioning the existence of a good and loving god that would allow such horrors.
Simple, he would reply to such moans. He ain't a good and loving god, and you blind yourself to it despite what you read in the old Testament and Torah.
Sometimes, he got horrified stares. Sometimes, it was harsh laughter. Most of the time it was a dull and heavy acceptance. May as well learn the truth, after all. Gods were just memories of ancient people who gained power in belief and power corrupts.
This time, however, as the elders and women and children slowly staggered to the light of day, he eyed them, smoking a cigarette.
"Leave here," he advised them in quiet, accented French. This was not the 'we are here to protect and free you, we are the Great and Wonderful Americans and English, here to bring peace and joy to the world' speech he was supposed to give. But with only a few others in the unit that spoke any French at all, it really didn't matter what he said.
"Go. The fighting will come and go over here no matter how quiet it seems for a while. You're better off fleeing for Spain."
Not much better. But at least Spain was neutral during the war. He felt the eyes of the battered and weary souls upon him, and smoked. He blew smoke upwards to mix with the melange of smog hazing the air.
He gave a winning smile and thumbs up to his commander with the man landed a confused and confronting gaze on him, after noticing the townsfolk gathering up their meagre belongings and starting off down the road.
"I am failing to understand the issue here, Sergeant. Why are they leaving? You assured them of their safety, did you not?" the man demanded.
Canaan readjusted his hat with a quirky smile and shrug.
"Yes, sir."
"You must have said something."
"Just saying what I was told to say, sir."
"Get them to come back. To have lost faith in our victory will tear down the morale of the men," the other man barked. Canaan glanced over the dispirited and broken shells of what had once been men. There was no morale, there was life, death, and the endless limbo of wartime stretched between terror and boredom.
"Yes, sir," Canaan replied, saluting smartly. He turned and then just sort of melted back into the wearied swarm of service men. They began to haul away the dead, stacking them like cordwood for some great pyre.
It would be better to light that pyre, to free all of the souls bound into the madness of war, so many little more than boys who had managed to lie their way into the military. But with the bodies gone, how would the family's know they had lost their precious son?
Purifying fire. It had become a dragon in the long and terrible night before. This war, this world war, was becoming a grisly testing ground of every horror that lurked in a man's mind.
He had watched the dragon from afar. Its head popped out of the dirt. There were a few clicks. Then fire. It poured from the slender head, it bellowed from the no-mans land to the occupying Germans, and lit their world aflame. Worse, the weapon spouted diesel fuel, and where it landed, and pooled, it burned.
It was a ghastly weapon in a long line of hideous weapons. From the triangular bladed trench knife to the submarines, the gas, the minefields, and airplanes now was added this Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector. Humans were endlessly creative. He wondered if that horrifying brute would be enough for their blood lust, if it would be enough to break the endless battle of attrition that they fought.
Canaan slowly stepped down into the trench surrounding Mametz. One of them. They had become a bizarre tangle, with the German's insistent right angles, the Allied men's hastily made heaps of dirt and stone, the English sapper's works of architectural underground art.
Something ticked at his mind. He smiled, faint and grim, and turned to follow that pull. He lit a small carbide lamp as the day gave way to night.
Over a mile through the abandoned trenches he hiked, and then he stopped. It had been a woodland, but now, was little more than a wrack of mud, blood, toxic waste, and hate. Steps, skewed wooden boards, led deeper below. In those deep saps, one couldn't even hear the falling bombs.
It had been a German sap, and it was abandoned in great haste. Probably months, a year or three before. It was difficult to say. Canaan looked around and waited.
Yellow eyes caught a glint of green, and a large, grizzled wolf stepped into the pool of light shed from Canaan's lantern.
"I did as you asked," Canaan noted, leaning a shoulder to the tin-clad wall and slowly fishing a cigarette from a half crumpled pack.
"My thanks," the wolf responded in a soft and deep voice, bowing his head, "Would that I could save them all, but it is not to be."
"It is what it is, wolf. Do you have a name, while I'm thinking about it?" Canaan asked.
"I have many, same as you. It may entertain you to call me Bisclavret."
"Why would it do that?"
The wolf's brows quirked, his head tipping.
"I believed that you were French, as well."
"Ah, Monsieur Loup, I am Acadian, made up from the heat an' sweat an' fires of the American South. We speak French because it's hotter than English, an' it pisses 'em off," Cane explained, his voice running sweet as beestung honey.
The wolf laughed, odd choppy barks.
"Bonne, so I see. I must ask of you again a boon, Sergeant Devillier. Are you willing to grant this?"
"Same as before, Bisclavret. If I see it to be worthwhile."
"Worthwhile of what, I must ask, I did not before," the wolf queried, moving closer. He sat before Canaan as the man lit up his cigarette. Canaan abruptly dropped his hand onto the wolf's head, idly rubbing the animal's ear. Bisclavret turned to the massage, not offended by the gesture.
"I dunno anymore, Bis. Whenever I walk too long through one of these wars, things change. What was a small thing in peacetime can be life and death in war," Canaan admitted slowly, his gaze distant and dark, "A candy bar can save a kid's life, a sneeze can wipe out your unit."
"Understood. Then, I will ask this boon with new hope: Last night, they unleashed the mighty dragons. But two failed. Two were struck as if randomly by flying bombs, and thus entombed, their teeth pulled before they could bay out their flames."
"...I hadn't heard that."
"In wartime, we may presume twice to be the enemy action rather than the happenstance," Bisclavret pointed out, prim. His head tilted to encourage Canaan to rub the other ear.
"I see," Canaan responded, his frown growing, though he obliged the wolf.
"Cherchez la femmes," Bisclavret noted, his eyes squeezing shut. Canaan scoffed a laugh.
"In this war, it's usually a thunder headed man behind the problems, but I get what you're saying. So find this woman, expose her for a spy. She'd be far behind the lines, with the brave top officers, and have some way to contact the enemy."
"It is a very large ask, I know this."
"Yeah. But frankly, I'm a little tired of the front lines, and I'm more than positive that those dunderheads will manage to lose this town at least once more before it's done. Hope you'll be alright here, Bisclavret. Unless you want to come with me as my faithful dog o' war."
"Though I am a wolf, my loyalty to those who have helped me is without end," Bisclavret replied, bowing his head.
"Bisclavret," another voice called, quiet and husky. Canaan froze, while Bisclavret only turned his massive head.
"It is the Jones girl. She works with the Underground."
"Some warning would be nice, Loyal One," Canaan chided, amused despite himself. Bisclavret chortled.
Girl, Bisclavret said, but she did not look much like one. Androgynous and cool, suspicious, the Jones girl was albino, bare five foot tall, dressed in boy's clothing, dark glasses on her face, a newsboy hat on her head. A golden retriever walked at her side, alert and cautious. Following the unlikely pair was about ten children, as ragged and filthy as the girl and dog leading them.
"You can get them to orphanages in Spain?" Canaan inquired. Jones shook her head.
"That is not satisfactory. They must go to the United States."
Canaan chuckled, impressed with the size of the girl's balls.
"That's not going to be easy, sister."
"I am not your sister. And it will be much easier if you will allow yourself to be comfortable with the situation in which you are now entangled," Jones retorted, crisp and cool.
"All right, I will give myself over to the madness," Canaan decided, amused, "So, where to?"
"You had said that any female which would be a spy would be far behind the lines," Bisclavret pointed out, "And that is also where these children must go."
"Alright. Lead the way, Bis," Canaan noted, "We'll go through the trenches as far as we can, and the work it out from there."
And so, they walked. Canaan absently picked up two of the smallest children, two others rode upon Bisclavret's back. In the distance, they could hear the rattlings of war, never really far enough away. The children were weary, hungry and thirsty both, but they had little more than water to give them.
"I just wonder what they'll make of these kids, talking about talking to a wolf and a soldier and led out by a blind girl and a dog," Canaan mused some time later. A few of the kids giggled quietly.
"They will say they were speaking to Bisclavret, and few will think anything of it," Jones responded absently, "As for the rest, the war has made far stranger of companions."
"Why is it different to speak to Bisclavret than a wolf?" Canaan asked, glancing to the creature. Wolf, but the golden retriever walked alongside it without the slightest lift of hackles.
"Bisclavret is noble, and loyal, angered only at those who have betrayed him," Jones responded with a shrug, then she looked to the wolf, "And thus we are going far behind the lines, yes?"
"It is so," Bisclavret agreed mildly.
"To find a woman who was acting as a spy for the Germans," Canaan added.
"A woman who has betrayed France. And England, Wales, the United States..." Bisclavret declared with a toss of his head.
"And I would think, a woman who has betrayed Bisclavret," Canaan put in with a whipcord smile. Bisclavret chuffed, looking away.
"It is not only woman who become self righteous with vengeance when they have been betrayed," Jones said, scoffing softly.
"What'd she do, kick you out in favor of a poodle?" Canaan asked humorously. Bisclavret barked a laugh.
"Almost in fact, yes. Worse, she took my life, but did not kill me, as you can see."
"Jones. Where are you from?" Canaan demanded without warning. She turned towards him, the smoked glasses on her face reflecting him dully.
"I am from a vast ocean which now is only bones burning in the sun," she responded, cool and distant.
"I see. So I somehow end up with two creatures that can't speak straight for the life of them."
"Magic people and animals don't get to talk to regular people enough to learn how to just talk," the oldest boy put in with a sheepish shrug. Canaan laughed again.
"That makes the most sense of anything I've ever heard.
There was a peculiar logic and sense to be made of the military and the minds in charge of it, Canaan knew, and he was in the position to carefully pull on the strings and levers of a by-the-book Englishman. He carefully wound the man up and let him go, smiling as the lieutenant swooped down upon Jones and her gaggle of children.
"He'll just about deliver them to Ascension Parish, himself," Canaan murmured to Bisclavret, "But I am kind of curious why she wants those kids shipped to the US. She do that a lot?"
"I am uncertain. Her dog is even more cryptic than she, and despite being a golden retriever, is cunning and intelligent. A strange Bruja, perhaps, she is always picking at very fine points and making them happen," Bisclavret responded with a shrug.
"They coming with us?" Canaan wondered, his brows knitting.
"I am uncertain, once more, my apologies. But, no need to wait for them, in truth, they know these ways as well as I. Come."
Canaan sputtered a laugh and fell in with the wolf as it began a wide patrol around the headquarters station.
"You know, Bis, I am one of you magic people and animals," Canaan informed the wolf. Bisclavret's ears swiveled.
"I assumed there must be some of it within you, for you did hear me, but you seem so … human."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment,” Canaan noted, dry as dust, “What are we looking for out here? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of a skirt, seen plenty of men who would throw open the gates of heaven to get at a pretty lady, but no…”
“Women?” Bisclavret finished. Canaan’s eyes narrowed.
“And little Miss Jones looks like a boy. It’s not very hard to pull off. How did you peg Jones as a she? Scent?”
“There are many more ways than that. There is the cut of the arms, the swell of hips, the way of the walk, the swing of a throw, the way of carrying weight at the hip.”
“It frightens me that I may be around you lot so much that I start talking cryptic,” Canaan assured Bisclavret. The wolf chuffed laughter, his heavy tail swinging side to side.
Everything Bisclavret had said was true, but rarely made sense to the question asked. Canaan paused, looking around. Just a few years ago, they would have been standing in a beautifully kept field of lavender. The headquarters was a painfully tidy stand of half timber tents and barbed wire in racks and rows of fencing.
No less than three checkpoints were set up, and he and Bisclavret had breezed past all three without so much as a call for their names.
“We walked right past all that,” Canaan mulled, turning back. Bisclavret’s ears quirked. He licked his chops thoughtfully as he followed the man.
“There’s a big, lovely hole. I think we’ll just sit here with our gigs and lights and see if we can’t catch us a fat little hopper.”
Bisclavret stared at the man, baffled. Canaan laughed, a low rolling of humor as he found a place to sit in the darkness. Muttering, the wolf joined him.
There was a peculiar rattle and chatter to the silent ride of a bicycle. The chain, the pull of cranks and the groan of rubber tires. A few pebbles skittered from under the wheels. Canaan grinned as he watched the bicycle come rolling towards them. He started to sit up, to speak, however…
Bisclavret came roaring up from a nice little sleep at Canaan’s feet. A bark broke into an accusatory howling, a yammer flexed within the angered tones. He threw himself at the bicycle and rider like some unhinged fury, throwing the rider to the dirt and bellowing into their face.
Shocked, Canaan rushed in and wrapped an arm around Bisclavret’s neck, blinking several times.
“Bis! Bis! What the fuck?! You’re going to bring the whole damn outpost on us!” he hissed, ludicrous because the wolf was baying like a mad dog and the bicyclist was screaming like a woman.
Like a woman. Canaan hauled Bisclavret aside and stared at the bike rider. She. Dressed as a young man and still somehow fetching despite being thrown to the ground by an angered wolf.
“Don’t let him hurt me! I did nothing to him! He is insane!” she wailed. Strange words for someone that just had a furious wolf pulled from them. Stranger still, there was not a mark on her. Not a prick of tooth or scratch from a claw.
“What the hell is this?” Canaan murmured with a sneer of a smile as he reached down to pick the woman out of the dirt by the front of her coat. As he put her back to her feet, two hastily wrapped sheaths of paper fell onto the ground. They were clearly marked as Allied properties.
“A little Frenchy girl bicycling from an Allied Headquarters with all these papers? Oh. We will have much to speak about.”
“No. No. Please. Just let me go. I had no choice! They threatened to … to ...to kill my husband…” she pleaded, grabbing for Canaan’s hands. Bisclavret sneered.
“Your husband. Your husband that you killed!”
“No! No I did not! I… He… He was gone, he left, fled from the Germans…”
“Lies! What did you do with his clothing, murderer! Murderer and spy!” Bisclavret demanded, snapping jaws into her face. She squealed and wrenched back.
"It is not true, monsieur, please, let me go, he is insane! I am innocent!" she cried, turning to Canaan. He stared at her in astonishment.
"You are totally fine with talking to a wolf, and I'm supposed to believe you are innocent?"
The woman abruptly clamped her mouth shut, her eyes showing their whites.
“Faithless whore! We shall see you swinging from the gibbet,” the wolf hissed, glaring at the woman. She abruptly laughed at him, wide eyed and unhinged.
“And you will never have your revenge, you pig! I gave those clothes to my new handsome husband, so that if need be, he could pretend to be French,” she crowed, abruptly spitting in Bisclavret’s face, “Noble Bisclavret, hah! I know what a true animal you are! You destroyed my weakling husband, blame yourself!”
“Loyal dog of war,” Canaan reminded the wolf. Bisclavret slowly drew in a breath and settled to a perfect heel at the man’s side as guards rushed to see what the commotion was about.
“That is that,” Bisclavret noted with a wearied sigh, watching with a morbid interest as the Frenchwoman died with the snap of the rope.
“It is not that,” Canaan replied, rather amused to be able to play on a cryptic bit of a phrase. Bisclavret eyed him.
“Mrs. Gunter Fachs, who had been Mrs. Aubin Morven, who had been Miss Alma Benoit, executed for treason and espionage, is done with, and now, I have nothing more to do than to return to the trenches and hope for others who may hear me to help my people escape this madness,” Bisclavret responded evenly, turning away as he spoke.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find what you were seeking,” Canaan noted with an exhalation.
“My own fault, in truth, mon ami. I trusted where I knew better than to trust. Ah, but I wanted to trust. I wanted so much to no longer be alone in this world.”
“There are other wolves that speak. Were wolves?” Canaan reminded the wolf. Bisclavret scoffed, bitter, turning back to regard the man
“Those. More animal than man. They revel in the releasing of the holy bonds of humanity. They borrow the nobility of the dog and call it their own, they do not realize that the loyalty of the pack is a measure of survival and not a choice made from a discerning mind.”
Canaan’s brows quirked, somewhat surprised at the vitriol tinging the wolf’s words.
“Forgive me, I am angered and wearied, and would rather return to my solitude of terror in the trenches,” Bisclavret assured Canaan, briefly resting a paw to Canaan’s hand. Then the large beast turned and slipped back into the night.
Canaan frowned as he withdrew another cigarette. He lifted a brow when a Zippo clicked near at hand, and he turned to light his cigarette from the flame offered. Miss Jones stood there, as faceless and forgettable as before.
“Why’d he go?” she asked.
“Spy woman didn’t have the clothes he was looking for…? Said she’d given them to her German husband so he could pose as a Frenchman if he needed,” Canaan replied slowly. Jones shook her head.
“Woman like that makes a living making men trust them and she only trusts that she can get them under her thumb. If it was valuable, it was on her.”
“I’m wondering why you’re not asking why his old master’s clothing are so valuable to him,” Canaan noted, drawing in a breath. He watched her lighting her own cigarette.
“You’re too American, Sergeant. People here, maybe they’ve got one or two sets of clothes. Then there’s your gully witches who want sweat, they want blood, they want skin, and all you need is a man’s handkerchief. Tell me, did she say who was to have her things when she was dead?” Jones inquired. Canaan nodded.
“Yeah, her sister Elsa. Elsa Benoit.”
“Fortunate then that the people you have sent to seek sanctuary in Spain are passing by now. Come.”
Canaan watched her, but he still wasn’t sure how she’d managed it. Jones simply led him to a small, unused office. She opened a large bag and rummaged through it. A sloppy wig of dishwater blonde in a bun pulled over her own white hair. She removed her glasses and replaced them with dark circles of kohl.
An old skirt and a filthy shawl finished the costume she made. He stared at her, astonished. Her eyes were a pale and uneasy color, but otherwise, she looked like any other war-weary woman seeking asylum.
“People see what they want to see,” Jones informed him, bland, “And what will be expected of the lovely Alma will be the long suffering older sister who struggled for so long to try and make her sister a good girl.”
“That does fit. Question: You don’t seem a moment over seventeen, when you’re not portraying a middle aged French woman. How have you come to learn these things?” Canaan asked, more curious than suspicious.
“Corinne is a specialist in such things,” Jones responded, nodding her head towards her dog as she tied a kerchief over her head. The golden retriever lifted her chin proudly.
“The dog.”
“As was the wolf.”
“Why do you do these things, then?” Canaan wondered, glancing again to the dog. She was a beautiful animal, but a poor specimen of the breed: she was too small, too dainty, her coat too yellow, and clearly there was coyote blood running in her veins.
“It’s a living,” Jones responded after a long moment’s thought. Canaan abruptly laughed. Jones stepped from the office, gesturing for him to follow.
“I knew she would end up upon a gibbet, but I so prayed,” Jones whispered in ragged and mournful French. Canaan dutifully translated for her to the disinterested major overseeing the matter.
“What does she expect the English Army to do, Sergeant?” the man demanded, irritated. Canaan shrugged and spoke to Jones in French. She responded with an artful catch in her voice.
“A good Christian funeral and her things…?”
“She can have the woman’s things, but as for the good Christian funeral, she really should have considered not sending thousands of men to their deaths in her spy games,” the Major snapped, getting to his feet. He abruptly removed a bundle from a locker and thrust it into Jones’s arms.
“Good Day, Madam. My only condolences are that you must be related to that vermin, may God provide you with better family,” he went on, cold.
“I think I’ll pass on translating that, Major. Thank you,” Canaan noted wryly. He took Jones’s arm and escorted her out.
“Hm. I wonder if he is so self righteous because he is angry he didn’t suspect that the pretty woman hanging around camp probably didn’t have noble intentions, or because he is glad that they have someone else to blame the deaths of last month upon,” Jones murmured, still speaking French. Canaan stifled a laugh, returning them to the office where they had been.
“Likely, both. So… What is in the bundle…?”
A few brown paper wrapped packages were stacked along with a small bundle of Alma’s underthings. The packages been searched, but they contained only a Gendarmerie uniform, a wallet and identification.
“Aubin Morven,” Canaan read, frowning, “And here I was suspecting that Bisclavret was actually the husband.”
“You don’t know who Bisclavret is, do you?” Jones finally announced, slowly turning her gaze to Canaan.
“...The wolf.”
“The wolf. The good wolf. Not a loup-garou, nor garwaf, not even a were wolf. He was a knight, well loved and known for his loyalty. But every week, for three days, he would vanish and none could say where he had been…” Jones replied, her tone taking up a melodic cadence. Canaan stared at her.
“His wife begged to know his secret, and he told her: he became a wolf in those days. He must hide his clothing and keep them safe, so he could return to human.”
“And… she betrayed him,” Canaan added slowly. She nodded.
“So, no one would think it was strange if the kids were talking to Bisclavret. They’d think they meant your dog. A good wolf. Something you came up with to keep them calm. Clever. So now what do we do with Aubin's clothing?” he asked, watching Jones keenly.
Jones shuffled through the other items in the bundle. She found papers secreted in a corset and read them with a terribly unpleasant curl of her lips, “I think we have found our next assignment, Corinne.”
“Then let us be away. In bocca al lupo,” the dog remarked. She turned, then the young woman turned, and both walked from the room.
"Ladies, that doesn't answer the question," Canaan noted in a flat sort of irritation. He knew better than to expect a clear answer at that point, but expected some inkling of an idea.
"He is a good wolf," Jones responded, "One does not wish for him to be ended."
"Yes, I know the saying," Canaan said, dry as sand. She glanced back at him with a shrug before shutting the door.
"They're going to have to dig out that dragon sooner or later."
When Canaan followed moments later, both were gone. There was a strange scent to the hallway, as if a dragon had idly stepped through.
He watched the team as they carefully made their measurements and walked their lines, consulted with old maps and photos. Now and then, they asked for his translations. He kept a close eye on Tony, the man was elderly and also rather crackers. He didn’t want to see the man hurt in his enthusiasm.
Sooner had been later, and nearly a century passed by. Canaan watched as much as he was able, waiting for the time when returning to Mametz would bring him back to Bisclavret. An English reality show provided the means. He stepped up and kindly offered his services as translator. They sought out the Flame Projector.
How fortunate it was that it was never recreated for wartime. Canaan smiled faintly as he watched the team working over the site.
Then there was a grizzled head under his hand. He smiled, flexing his fingers. He had expected it.
“Bisclavret may only watch Death from afar, with longing and romantic sighs, and thus, he remains.”
“You still can’t just say what it is,” Canaan chuckled faintly.
“This land has changed so. I scarce know it. Two wars has made it into a battlefield of a cemetery.”
“A lot of people owe you their lives,” Canaan reminded the animal. Bisclavret nodded, almost shrugging.
“They owe me nothing but to escape the madness and become happy and prosperous.”
“Why don’t you take your clothing?”
Canaan shifted and set a brown paper wrapped bundle down before the wolf. Bisclavret sniffed them but said nothing.
“You know, I did get a friend to cast a spell on them so they won’t fall to rags, and they’re going to be hopelessly out of style, but we can get you new clothing once you're you again,” Canaan went on, glancing to the wolf.
“I will see you tonight outside the inn,” Bisclavret murmured, and slipped away like smoke. Canaan exhaled, shaking his head. He glanced up and found himself staring.
Abruptly, he recognized her. It slammed down on him like a locomotive. Miss Jones. He watched, realizing she was absently manipulating one of the diggers, getting him to veer to the side of his trench until there was a call of ‘body’ gone up over the archeological site.
Canaan stared at her until she turned and absently strolled to meet him.
A lot had changed. A little taller. A lot more of a rack. A grin that smacked of happy insanity.
“...Desdenova's Mom,” Canaan finally choked out. She smiled and curtseyed. Oddly, she was wearing much the same as he’d seen her in the first time: jeans, a button down shirt, a duster coat, a hat, dark glasses. The dog, however, was gone.
“What brings you back here?” she inquired, arching a pale brow. Canaan exhaled and shrugged.
“Still trying to give Aubin his clothes. You?”
“I don’t always get a chance to see both ends of my jobs. Also, I needed to pop that corpse out, they would have missed him if I hadn’t bothered the digger,” she responded, lazily turning to watch as the team summoned the police to oversee the decades old casualty of war.
“Which begs the question, what do you do?”
“I take the fire, my dear. I may protect those that shouldn’t be burned, but in the end, I take the fire. Those things which are far, far too dangerous or advanced for humans to be playing with. Like here. Two bombs awry, and … well. There is the one remaining, entombed in mud and time.”
“Then they hung an innocent woman…?” Canaan sputtered, astonished. She shook her head.
“Oh, no. Of course not. Messages had to be run after all. Suspicion for specific areas had to be planted. And she was all too eager to assist the enemy. Her German husband promised her the world should Wilhelm manage to conquer France.”
“Maybe if you explained it all. Because I cannot get Aubin to take his clothing back, and … I mean, the very reason we were all brought here is being dug up as an artifact,” he implored with a laugh and swing of his hand.
“Hm. Bisclavret was a knight, Cane. A knight of Brittany, an early Christian, a modest man.”
“Still with the riddle-talk,” he scolded, amused.
“Really, what you must think of me. I only speak straight and true when it benefits me, amuses me, or I’m yelling for the kids.”
“Then pretend I’m one of the brats. You owe me. I helped you with all this, got all those kids sent to my parish,” Canaan pointed out.
“Oh, for spirit’s sake. Give the man some privacy. Aubin is not going to strip down in front of you, the gods, and everyone. You really need to hang around more magic people, dearling.”
Canaan stared at her. She shrugged, lips in a quirky moue of amusement.
“Going to go get fancy French pastries, darling. There’s a nice hotel right by the inn, rent a room. You may want to pick up something more modern for him to wear, as well. Tata!” she burbled. She turned and trundled over the old fields back towards the little town of Mametz.
After a moment, Canaan choked laughter and got to his feet, following her.
"Okay, now answer: If I bought any clothing for him and said these are yours, would that work?"
"Oh, now you're starting to clue in. We may just make a legend out of you yet, Mr. Devillier," she chortled, slowing down enough to take his arm.
(Very long tale, and if it seems I might use the setting again, then you are correct, I might. I have borrowed Canaan for this outing, if you would like to borrow the Cajun, please ask them!)
It was the third, or second, perhaps forth time that they had retaken Mametz. He wondered often what the hell was going through the minds of the high command only to laugh at himself. He waded through a soup of corpses, following the rest of the ragged unit of Americans, English, and Welsh back to the accursed town.
Remarkably, there were still living beings in the small French town. They took refuge under their church, as so many did, even while questioning the existence of a good and loving god that would allow such horrors.
Simple, he would reply to such moans. He ain't a good and loving god, and you blind yourself to it despite what you read in the old Testament and Torah.
Sometimes, he got horrified stares. Sometimes, it was harsh laughter. Most of the time it was a dull and heavy acceptance. May as well learn the truth, after all. Gods were just memories of ancient people who gained power in belief and power corrupts.
This time, however, as the elders and women and children slowly staggered to the light of day, he eyed them, smoking a cigarette.
"Leave here," he advised them in quiet, accented French. This was not the 'we are here to protect and free you, we are the Great and Wonderful Americans and English, here to bring peace and joy to the world' speech he was supposed to give. But with only a few others in the unit that spoke any French at all, it really didn't matter what he said.
"Go. The fighting will come and go over here no matter how quiet it seems for a while. You're better off fleeing for Spain."
Not much better. But at least Spain was neutral during the war. He felt the eyes of the battered and weary souls upon him, and smoked. He blew smoke upwards to mix with the melange of smog hazing the air.
He gave a winning smile and thumbs up to his commander with the man landed a confused and confronting gaze on him, after noticing the townsfolk gathering up their meagre belongings and starting off down the road.
"I am failing to understand the issue here, Sergeant. Why are they leaving? You assured them of their safety, did you not?" the man demanded.
Canaan readjusted his hat with a quirky smile and shrug.
"Yes, sir."
"You must have said something."
"Just saying what I was told to say, sir."
"Get them to come back. To have lost faith in our victory will tear down the morale of the men," the other man barked. Canaan glanced over the dispirited and broken shells of what had once been men. There was no morale, there was life, death, and the endless limbo of wartime stretched between terror and boredom.
"Yes, sir," Canaan replied, saluting smartly. He turned and then just sort of melted back into the wearied swarm of service men. They began to haul away the dead, stacking them like cordwood for some great pyre.
It would be better to light that pyre, to free all of the souls bound into the madness of war, so many little more than boys who had managed to lie their way into the military. But with the bodies gone, how would the family's know they had lost their precious son?
Purifying fire. It had become a dragon in the long and terrible night before. This war, this world war, was becoming a grisly testing ground of every horror that lurked in a man's mind.
He had watched the dragon from afar. Its head popped out of the dirt. There were a few clicks. Then fire. It poured from the slender head, it bellowed from the no-mans land to the occupying Germans, and lit their world aflame. Worse, the weapon spouted diesel fuel, and where it landed, and pooled, it burned.
It was a ghastly weapon in a long line of hideous weapons. From the triangular bladed trench knife to the submarines, the gas, the minefields, and airplanes now was added this Livens Large Gallery Flame Projector. Humans were endlessly creative. He wondered if that horrifying brute would be enough for their blood lust, if it would be enough to break the endless battle of attrition that they fought.
Canaan slowly stepped down into the trench surrounding Mametz. One of them. They had become a bizarre tangle, with the German's insistent right angles, the Allied men's hastily made heaps of dirt and stone, the English sapper's works of architectural underground art.
Something ticked at his mind. He smiled, faint and grim, and turned to follow that pull. He lit a small carbide lamp as the day gave way to night.
Over a mile through the abandoned trenches he hiked, and then he stopped. It had been a woodland, but now, was little more than a wrack of mud, blood, toxic waste, and hate. Steps, skewed wooden boards, led deeper below. In those deep saps, one couldn't even hear the falling bombs.
It had been a German sap, and it was abandoned in great haste. Probably months, a year or three before. It was difficult to say. Canaan looked around and waited.
Yellow eyes caught a glint of green, and a large, grizzled wolf stepped into the pool of light shed from Canaan's lantern.
"I did as you asked," Canaan noted, leaning a shoulder to the tin-clad wall and slowly fishing a cigarette from a half crumpled pack.
"My thanks," the wolf responded in a soft and deep voice, bowing his head, "Would that I could save them all, but it is not to be."
"It is what it is, wolf. Do you have a name, while I'm thinking about it?" Canaan asked.
"I have many, same as you. It may entertain you to call me Bisclavret."
"Why would it do that?"
The wolf's brows quirked, his head tipping.
"I believed that you were French, as well."
"Ah, Monsieur Loup, I am Acadian, made up from the heat an' sweat an' fires of the American South. We speak French because it's hotter than English, an' it pisses 'em off," Cane explained, his voice running sweet as beestung honey.
The wolf laughed, odd choppy barks.
"Bonne, so I see. I must ask of you again a boon, Sergeant Devillier. Are you willing to grant this?"
"Same as before, Bisclavret. If I see it to be worthwhile."
"Worthwhile of what, I must ask, I did not before," the wolf queried, moving closer. He sat before Canaan as the man lit up his cigarette. Canaan abruptly dropped his hand onto the wolf's head, idly rubbing the animal's ear. Bisclavret turned to the massage, not offended by the gesture.
"I dunno anymore, Bis. Whenever I walk too long through one of these wars, things change. What was a small thing in peacetime can be life and death in war," Canaan admitted slowly, his gaze distant and dark, "A candy bar can save a kid's life, a sneeze can wipe out your unit."
"Understood. Then, I will ask this boon with new hope: Last night, they unleashed the mighty dragons. But two failed. Two were struck as if randomly by flying bombs, and thus entombed, their teeth pulled before they could bay out their flames."
"...I hadn't heard that."
"In wartime, we may presume twice to be the enemy action rather than the happenstance," Bisclavret pointed out, prim. His head tilted to encourage Canaan to rub the other ear.
"I see," Canaan responded, his frown growing, though he obliged the wolf.
"Cherchez la femmes," Bisclavret noted, his eyes squeezing shut. Canaan scoffed a laugh.
"In this war, it's usually a thunder headed man behind the problems, but I get what you're saying. So find this woman, expose her for a spy. She'd be far behind the lines, with the brave top officers, and have some way to contact the enemy."
"It is a very large ask, I know this."
"Yeah. But frankly, I'm a little tired of the front lines, and I'm more than positive that those dunderheads will manage to lose this town at least once more before it's done. Hope you'll be alright here, Bisclavret. Unless you want to come with me as my faithful dog o' war."
"Though I am a wolf, my loyalty to those who have helped me is without end," Bisclavret replied, bowing his head.
"Bisclavret," another voice called, quiet and husky. Canaan froze, while Bisclavret only turned his massive head.
"It is the Jones girl. She works with the Underground."
"Some warning would be nice, Loyal One," Canaan chided, amused despite himself. Bisclavret chortled.
Girl, Bisclavret said, but she did not look much like one. Androgynous and cool, suspicious, the Jones girl was albino, bare five foot tall, dressed in boy's clothing, dark glasses on her face, a newsboy hat on her head. A golden retriever walked at her side, alert and cautious. Following the unlikely pair was about ten children, as ragged and filthy as the girl and dog leading them.
"You can get them to orphanages in Spain?" Canaan inquired. Jones shook her head.
"That is not satisfactory. They must go to the United States."
Canaan chuckled, impressed with the size of the girl's balls.
"That's not going to be easy, sister."
"I am not your sister. And it will be much easier if you will allow yourself to be comfortable with the situation in which you are now entangled," Jones retorted, crisp and cool.
"All right, I will give myself over to the madness," Canaan decided, amused, "So, where to?"
"You had said that any female which would be a spy would be far behind the lines," Bisclavret pointed out, "And that is also where these children must go."
"Alright. Lead the way, Bis," Canaan noted, "We'll go through the trenches as far as we can, and the work it out from there."
And so, they walked. Canaan absently picked up two of the smallest children, two others rode upon Bisclavret's back. In the distance, they could hear the rattlings of war, never really far enough away. The children were weary, hungry and thirsty both, but they had little more than water to give them.
"I just wonder what they'll make of these kids, talking about talking to a wolf and a soldier and led out by a blind girl and a dog," Canaan mused some time later. A few of the kids giggled quietly.
"They will say they were speaking to Bisclavret, and few will think anything of it," Jones responded absently, "As for the rest, the war has made far stranger of companions."
"Why is it different to speak to Bisclavret than a wolf?" Canaan asked, glancing to the creature. Wolf, but the golden retriever walked alongside it without the slightest lift of hackles.
"Bisclavret is noble, and loyal, angered only at those who have betrayed him," Jones responded with a shrug, then she looked to the wolf, "And thus we are going far behind the lines, yes?"
"It is so," Bisclavret agreed mildly.
"To find a woman who was acting as a spy for the Germans," Canaan added.
"A woman who has betrayed France. And England, Wales, the United States..." Bisclavret declared with a toss of his head.
"And I would think, a woman who has betrayed Bisclavret," Canaan put in with a whipcord smile. Bisclavret chuffed, looking away.
"It is not only woman who become self righteous with vengeance when they have been betrayed," Jones said, scoffing softly.
"What'd she do, kick you out in favor of a poodle?" Canaan asked humorously. Bisclavret barked a laugh.
"Almost in fact, yes. Worse, she took my life, but did not kill me, as you can see."
"Jones. Where are you from?" Canaan demanded without warning. She turned towards him, the smoked glasses on her face reflecting him dully.
"I am from a vast ocean which now is only bones burning in the sun," she responded, cool and distant.
"I see. So I somehow end up with two creatures that can't speak straight for the life of them."
"Magic people and animals don't get to talk to regular people enough to learn how to just talk," the oldest boy put in with a sheepish shrug. Canaan laughed again.
"That makes the most sense of anything I've ever heard.
There was a peculiar logic and sense to be made of the military and the minds in charge of it, Canaan knew, and he was in the position to carefully pull on the strings and levers of a by-the-book Englishman. He carefully wound the man up and let him go, smiling as the lieutenant swooped down upon Jones and her gaggle of children.
"He'll just about deliver them to Ascension Parish, himself," Canaan murmured to Bisclavret, "But I am kind of curious why she wants those kids shipped to the US. She do that a lot?"
"I am uncertain. Her dog is even more cryptic than she, and despite being a golden retriever, is cunning and intelligent. A strange Bruja, perhaps, she is always picking at very fine points and making them happen," Bisclavret responded with a shrug.
"They coming with us?" Canaan wondered, his brows knitting.
"I am uncertain, once more, my apologies. But, no need to wait for them, in truth, they know these ways as well as I. Come."
Canaan sputtered a laugh and fell in with the wolf as it began a wide patrol around the headquarters station.
"You know, Bis, I am one of you magic people and animals," Canaan informed the wolf. Bisclavret's ears swiveled.
"I assumed there must be some of it within you, for you did hear me, but you seem so … human."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment,” Canaan noted, dry as dust, “What are we looking for out here? I haven’t seen hide nor hair of a skirt, seen plenty of men who would throw open the gates of heaven to get at a pretty lady, but no…”
“Women?” Bisclavret finished. Canaan’s eyes narrowed.
“And little Miss Jones looks like a boy. It’s not very hard to pull off. How did you peg Jones as a she? Scent?”
“There are many more ways than that. There is the cut of the arms, the swell of hips, the way of the walk, the swing of a throw, the way of carrying weight at the hip.”
“It frightens me that I may be around you lot so much that I start talking cryptic,” Canaan assured Bisclavret. The wolf chuffed laughter, his heavy tail swinging side to side.
Everything Bisclavret had said was true, but rarely made sense to the question asked. Canaan paused, looking around. Just a few years ago, they would have been standing in a beautifully kept field of lavender. The headquarters was a painfully tidy stand of half timber tents and barbed wire in racks and rows of fencing.
No less than three checkpoints were set up, and he and Bisclavret had breezed past all three without so much as a call for their names.
“We walked right past all that,” Canaan mulled, turning back. Bisclavret’s ears quirked. He licked his chops thoughtfully as he followed the man.
“There’s a big, lovely hole. I think we’ll just sit here with our gigs and lights and see if we can’t catch us a fat little hopper.”
Bisclavret stared at the man, baffled. Canaan laughed, a low rolling of humor as he found a place to sit in the darkness. Muttering, the wolf joined him.
There was a peculiar rattle and chatter to the silent ride of a bicycle. The chain, the pull of cranks and the groan of rubber tires. A few pebbles skittered from under the wheels. Canaan grinned as he watched the bicycle come rolling towards them. He started to sit up, to speak, however…
Bisclavret came roaring up from a nice little sleep at Canaan’s feet. A bark broke into an accusatory howling, a yammer flexed within the angered tones. He threw himself at the bicycle and rider like some unhinged fury, throwing the rider to the dirt and bellowing into their face.
Shocked, Canaan rushed in and wrapped an arm around Bisclavret’s neck, blinking several times.
“Bis! Bis! What the fuck?! You’re going to bring the whole damn outpost on us!” he hissed, ludicrous because the wolf was baying like a mad dog and the bicyclist was screaming like a woman.
Like a woman. Canaan hauled Bisclavret aside and stared at the bike rider. She. Dressed as a young man and still somehow fetching despite being thrown to the ground by an angered wolf.
“Don’t let him hurt me! I did nothing to him! He is insane!” she wailed. Strange words for someone that just had a furious wolf pulled from them. Stranger still, there was not a mark on her. Not a prick of tooth or scratch from a claw.
“What the hell is this?” Canaan murmured with a sneer of a smile as he reached down to pick the woman out of the dirt by the front of her coat. As he put her back to her feet, two hastily wrapped sheaths of paper fell onto the ground. They were clearly marked as Allied properties.
“A little Frenchy girl bicycling from an Allied Headquarters with all these papers? Oh. We will have much to speak about.”
“No. No. Please. Just let me go. I had no choice! They threatened to … to ...to kill my husband…” she pleaded, grabbing for Canaan’s hands. Bisclavret sneered.
“Your husband. Your husband that you killed!”
“No! No I did not! I… He… He was gone, he left, fled from the Germans…”
“Lies! What did you do with his clothing, murderer! Murderer and spy!” Bisclavret demanded, snapping jaws into her face. She squealed and wrenched back.
"It is not true, monsieur, please, let me go, he is insane! I am innocent!" she cried, turning to Canaan. He stared at her in astonishment.
"You are totally fine with talking to a wolf, and I'm supposed to believe you are innocent?"
The woman abruptly clamped her mouth shut, her eyes showing their whites.
“Faithless whore! We shall see you swinging from the gibbet,” the wolf hissed, glaring at the woman. She abruptly laughed at him, wide eyed and unhinged.
“And you will never have your revenge, you pig! I gave those clothes to my new handsome husband, so that if need be, he could pretend to be French,” she crowed, abruptly spitting in Bisclavret’s face, “Noble Bisclavret, hah! I know what a true animal you are! You destroyed my weakling husband, blame yourself!”
“Loyal dog of war,” Canaan reminded the wolf. Bisclavret slowly drew in a breath and settled to a perfect heel at the man’s side as guards rushed to see what the commotion was about.
“That is that,” Bisclavret noted with a wearied sigh, watching with a morbid interest as the Frenchwoman died with the snap of the rope.
“It is not that,” Canaan replied, rather amused to be able to play on a cryptic bit of a phrase. Bisclavret eyed him.
“Mrs. Gunter Fachs, who had been Mrs. Aubin Morven, who had been Miss Alma Benoit, executed for treason and espionage, is done with, and now, I have nothing more to do than to return to the trenches and hope for others who may hear me to help my people escape this madness,” Bisclavret responded evenly, turning away as he spoke.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t find what you were seeking,” Canaan noted with an exhalation.
“My own fault, in truth, mon ami. I trusted where I knew better than to trust. Ah, but I wanted to trust. I wanted so much to no longer be alone in this world.”
“There are other wolves that speak. Were wolves?” Canaan reminded the wolf. Bisclavret scoffed, bitter, turning back to regard the man
“Those. More animal than man. They revel in the releasing of the holy bonds of humanity. They borrow the nobility of the dog and call it their own, they do not realize that the loyalty of the pack is a measure of survival and not a choice made from a discerning mind.”
Canaan’s brows quirked, somewhat surprised at the vitriol tinging the wolf’s words.
“Forgive me, I am angered and wearied, and would rather return to my solitude of terror in the trenches,” Bisclavret assured Canaan, briefly resting a paw to Canaan’s hand. Then the large beast turned and slipped back into the night.
Canaan frowned as he withdrew another cigarette. He lifted a brow when a Zippo clicked near at hand, and he turned to light his cigarette from the flame offered. Miss Jones stood there, as faceless and forgettable as before.
“Why’d he go?” she asked.
“Spy woman didn’t have the clothes he was looking for…? Said she’d given them to her German husband so he could pose as a Frenchman if he needed,” Canaan replied slowly. Jones shook her head.
“Woman like that makes a living making men trust them and she only trusts that she can get them under her thumb. If it was valuable, it was on her.”
“I’m wondering why you’re not asking why his old master’s clothing are so valuable to him,” Canaan noted, drawing in a breath. He watched her lighting her own cigarette.
“You’re too American, Sergeant. People here, maybe they’ve got one or two sets of clothes. Then there’s your gully witches who want sweat, they want blood, they want skin, and all you need is a man’s handkerchief. Tell me, did she say who was to have her things when she was dead?” Jones inquired. Canaan nodded.
“Yeah, her sister Elsa. Elsa Benoit.”
“Fortunate then that the people you have sent to seek sanctuary in Spain are passing by now. Come.”
Canaan watched her, but he still wasn’t sure how she’d managed it. Jones simply led him to a small, unused office. She opened a large bag and rummaged through it. A sloppy wig of dishwater blonde in a bun pulled over her own white hair. She removed her glasses and replaced them with dark circles of kohl.
An old skirt and a filthy shawl finished the costume she made. He stared at her, astonished. Her eyes were a pale and uneasy color, but otherwise, she looked like any other war-weary woman seeking asylum.
“People see what they want to see,” Jones informed him, bland, “And what will be expected of the lovely Alma will be the long suffering older sister who struggled for so long to try and make her sister a good girl.”
“That does fit. Question: You don’t seem a moment over seventeen, when you’re not portraying a middle aged French woman. How have you come to learn these things?” Canaan asked, more curious than suspicious.
“Corinne is a specialist in such things,” Jones responded, nodding her head towards her dog as she tied a kerchief over her head. The golden retriever lifted her chin proudly.
“The dog.”
“As was the wolf.”
“Why do you do these things, then?” Canaan wondered, glancing again to the dog. She was a beautiful animal, but a poor specimen of the breed: she was too small, too dainty, her coat too yellow, and clearly there was coyote blood running in her veins.
“It’s a living,” Jones responded after a long moment’s thought. Canaan abruptly laughed. Jones stepped from the office, gesturing for him to follow.
“I knew she would end up upon a gibbet, but I so prayed,” Jones whispered in ragged and mournful French. Canaan dutifully translated for her to the disinterested major overseeing the matter.
“What does she expect the English Army to do, Sergeant?” the man demanded, irritated. Canaan shrugged and spoke to Jones in French. She responded with an artful catch in her voice.
“A good Christian funeral and her things…?”
“She can have the woman’s things, but as for the good Christian funeral, she really should have considered not sending thousands of men to their deaths in her spy games,” the Major snapped, getting to his feet. He abruptly removed a bundle from a locker and thrust it into Jones’s arms.
“Good Day, Madam. My only condolences are that you must be related to that vermin, may God provide you with better family,” he went on, cold.
“I think I’ll pass on translating that, Major. Thank you,” Canaan noted wryly. He took Jones’s arm and escorted her out.
“Hm. I wonder if he is so self righteous because he is angry he didn’t suspect that the pretty woman hanging around camp probably didn’t have noble intentions, or because he is glad that they have someone else to blame the deaths of last month upon,” Jones murmured, still speaking French. Canaan stifled a laugh, returning them to the office where they had been.
“Likely, both. So… What is in the bundle…?”
A few brown paper wrapped packages were stacked along with a small bundle of Alma’s underthings. The packages been searched, but they contained only a Gendarmerie uniform, a wallet and identification.
“Aubin Morven,” Canaan read, frowning, “And here I was suspecting that Bisclavret was actually the husband.”
“You don’t know who Bisclavret is, do you?” Jones finally announced, slowly turning her gaze to Canaan.
“...The wolf.”
“The wolf. The good wolf. Not a loup-garou, nor garwaf, not even a were wolf. He was a knight, well loved and known for his loyalty. But every week, for three days, he would vanish and none could say where he had been…” Jones replied, her tone taking up a melodic cadence. Canaan stared at her.
“His wife begged to know his secret, and he told her: he became a wolf in those days. He must hide his clothing and keep them safe, so he could return to human.”
“And… she betrayed him,” Canaan added slowly. She nodded.
“So, no one would think it was strange if the kids were talking to Bisclavret. They’d think they meant your dog. A good wolf. Something you came up with to keep them calm. Clever. So now what do we do with Aubin's clothing?” he asked, watching Jones keenly.
Jones shuffled through the other items in the bundle. She found papers secreted in a corset and read them with a terribly unpleasant curl of her lips, “I think we have found our next assignment, Corinne.”
“Then let us be away. In bocca al lupo,” the dog remarked. She turned, then the young woman turned, and both walked from the room.
"Ladies, that doesn't answer the question," Canaan noted in a flat sort of irritation. He knew better than to expect a clear answer at that point, but expected some inkling of an idea.
"He is a good wolf," Jones responded, "One does not wish for him to be ended."
"Yes, I know the saying," Canaan said, dry as sand. She glanced back at him with a shrug before shutting the door.
"They're going to have to dig out that dragon sooner or later."
When Canaan followed moments later, both were gone. There was a strange scent to the hallway, as if a dragon had idly stepped through.
He watched the team as they carefully made their measurements and walked their lines, consulted with old maps and photos. Now and then, they asked for his translations. He kept a close eye on Tony, the man was elderly and also rather crackers. He didn’t want to see the man hurt in his enthusiasm.
Sooner had been later, and nearly a century passed by. Canaan watched as much as he was able, waiting for the time when returning to Mametz would bring him back to Bisclavret. An English reality show provided the means. He stepped up and kindly offered his services as translator. They sought out the Flame Projector.
How fortunate it was that it was never recreated for wartime. Canaan smiled faintly as he watched the team working over the site.
Then there was a grizzled head under his hand. He smiled, flexing his fingers. He had expected it.
“Bisclavret may only watch Death from afar, with longing and romantic sighs, and thus, he remains.”
“You still can’t just say what it is,” Canaan chuckled faintly.
“This land has changed so. I scarce know it. Two wars has made it into a battlefield of a cemetery.”
“A lot of people owe you their lives,” Canaan reminded the animal. Bisclavret nodded, almost shrugging.
“They owe me nothing but to escape the madness and become happy and prosperous.”
“Why don’t you take your clothing?”
Canaan shifted and set a brown paper wrapped bundle down before the wolf. Bisclavret sniffed them but said nothing.
“You know, I did get a friend to cast a spell on them so they won’t fall to rags, and they’re going to be hopelessly out of style, but we can get you new clothing once you're you again,” Canaan went on, glancing to the wolf.
“I will see you tonight outside the inn,” Bisclavret murmured, and slipped away like smoke. Canaan exhaled, shaking his head. He glanced up and found himself staring.
Abruptly, he recognized her. It slammed down on him like a locomotive. Miss Jones. He watched, realizing she was absently manipulating one of the diggers, getting him to veer to the side of his trench until there was a call of ‘body’ gone up over the archeological site.
Canaan stared at her until she turned and absently strolled to meet him.
A lot had changed. A little taller. A lot more of a rack. A grin that smacked of happy insanity.
“...Desdenova's Mom,” Canaan finally choked out. She smiled and curtseyed. Oddly, she was wearing much the same as he’d seen her in the first time: jeans, a button down shirt, a duster coat, a hat, dark glasses. The dog, however, was gone.
“What brings you back here?” she inquired, arching a pale brow. Canaan exhaled and shrugged.
“Still trying to give Aubin his clothes. You?”
“I don’t always get a chance to see both ends of my jobs. Also, I needed to pop that corpse out, they would have missed him if I hadn’t bothered the digger,” she responded, lazily turning to watch as the team summoned the police to oversee the decades old casualty of war.
“Which begs the question, what do you do?”
“I take the fire, my dear. I may protect those that shouldn’t be burned, but in the end, I take the fire. Those things which are far, far too dangerous or advanced for humans to be playing with. Like here. Two bombs awry, and … well. There is the one remaining, entombed in mud and time.”
“Then they hung an innocent woman…?” Canaan sputtered, astonished. She shook her head.
“Oh, no. Of course not. Messages had to be run after all. Suspicion for specific areas had to be planted. And she was all too eager to assist the enemy. Her German husband promised her the world should Wilhelm manage to conquer France.”
“Maybe if you explained it all. Because I cannot get Aubin to take his clothing back, and … I mean, the very reason we were all brought here is being dug up as an artifact,” he implored with a laugh and swing of his hand.
“Hm. Bisclavret was a knight, Cane. A knight of Brittany, an early Christian, a modest man.”
“Still with the riddle-talk,” he scolded, amused.
“Really, what you must think of me. I only speak straight and true when it benefits me, amuses me, or I’m yelling for the kids.”
“Then pretend I’m one of the brats. You owe me. I helped you with all this, got all those kids sent to my parish,” Canaan pointed out.
“Oh, for spirit’s sake. Give the man some privacy. Aubin is not going to strip down in front of you, the gods, and everyone. You really need to hang around more magic people, dearling.”
Canaan stared at her. She shrugged, lips in a quirky moue of amusement.
“Going to go get fancy French pastries, darling. There’s a nice hotel right by the inn, rent a room. You may want to pick up something more modern for him to wear, as well. Tata!” she burbled. She turned and trundled over the old fields back towards the little town of Mametz.
After a moment, Canaan choked laughter and got to his feet, following her.
"Okay, now answer: If I bought any clothing for him and said these are yours, would that work?"
"Oh, now you're starting to clue in. We may just make a legend out of you yet, Mr. Devillier," she chortled, slowing down enough to take his arm.
Last edited by Pharlen on Sat Sep 11, 2021 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fantastically Ordinary
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
Drop by for a cuppa odd.
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Pharlen
- Seasoned Adventurer
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Re: Walk A Mile In Their Shoes
Thoughts on the medieval eras and the Black Plague. I really wondered how many bloodlines were interrupted...
Faye hasn't been seen in a while... but I always remember her strange distance and grace...
Her eyes snapped open.
Nothing registered save for a blinding, piercing thirst. She staggered, she crawled, she slithered like a wounded serpent until she saw before her a jug. A beautiful clay jug. So glorious. So perfect. Pristine.
She snatched it up and guzzled down the contents heedlessly.
Curdled milk. She bit through the cheese and gladly drank down the whey.
It had been left three days too long, her mind informed her primly.
She didn’t care. She dropped the jug and shambled to her feet with the strength borrowed from the awful drink. Another jug, old and stained with many a libation and more hands, ill washed. She drained it in an instant.
Nasty old wine. She didn’t care. She dropped the jug and reached for another, tearing it from the stiff grasp of the overweight oaf of a gaoler. Ale, weak and smelling of sweat. Finally, she could breath.
If she could. The room was rank, filled with the thick odor of decay and death, filth and disease. She caught her breath and pushed back her hair. Her hand stopped as it encountered the thick, sweaty, disgusting mass that should have been her beautiful and clean waves of dark hair.
She was filthy, she noted, looking down at herself as horror began to knock at her mind. Filthy. Her clothing were rags, embedded with dirt, grease, blood, vomit, urine. Her skin. Her feet. And in her arms…
She stared at the babe in something between confusion and dismay. He was wrapped in a few winds of cloth. It seemed to be the shawl belonging to the gaoler’s wife, Mary.
“Don’t worry,” Mary had whispered, “I’m sure he’ll die soon.”
It was meant to be a comfort.
“I won’t let that woman take him.”
That had been a comfort, and with those remembered words, her world came rushing back. Sobs broke from her. Her shoulders crushed. She hovered over the poor mite.
He was pale, but healthy. Strong. She could feel his heart, his breathing.
But to save him, to spare him, she must end him.
Less than a year before, she had been Magdalena, a celebrated dairy maid, known for her fine and delicate cheeses, her pure and sweet butter, her wonderful cleanliness. Her purity. When she went to market, her wares were contested, argued and once even fought over, so that it was decided that her goods must be auctioned fairly.
Women would come to her little dairy and watch her keenly to learn her secrets. Clergy would offer her riches and indulgences to share with them her secrets. Men would promise her the world for her secrets and more.
It was all very simple, really, Magdalena’s father built for her a dairy of good, clean stone, plastered it in limestone, and all of it was over a deep and cold spring. She kept herself as clean and cool as she kept her dairy.
But even though she would tell any who wanted to know what these mysteries of hers were, they imagined there must be more. There was more, of course. Her sense of smell was delicate, and she knew which milk would turn over soon, and the way best to make it serve. Her mother had taught her all the ways to preserve the butters, cheeses, and creams.
It was no miracle, but to those lacking in her patience, her skill and knowledge - and her natural refrigerator - they would always fall short of her.
Then He arrived. Dashing, handsome, impossibly wealthy. He gave her valuable spices - coriander, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon - to make up with her cheese. He gave her beautiful white linen to make up new clothing. He gave her a carved tortoiseshell comb to clean her hair with, with little picks of the same to clean her nails and ears with.
He understood the work. Her work. He understood her dairy. He had built one like to hers, he promised, even better, for it was shaded by a larger building. There was a fresh and cold spring that rose beneath it.
He promised her twenty pence a week, her food and drink and lodging provided, all to be good quality, with good meat twice a week. He promised her that she would have Sundays to worship, and two days a month to visit her parents. She would be allowed to use a donkey to visit them. He had all of those things written and taken to have her priest read and sign it.
She did not know how to read, but would never question her clergy. They would never allow her to be harmed or abused.
And so she gathered up what was hers, hugged and kissed her mother and father, and climbed to the back of the donkey sent for her. In a few days time, she gazed upon the nearly finished castle of Count Delahada of Yarte.
Her mistress became the lovely and sultry Countess Ygraine, who replaced the lovely and sunny Countess Marie, who in turn replaced the lovely and red headed Countess Iona. Though Magdalena had no interest in gossip, the maids were quick to fill her in.
In five years, there had been no sign of an heir, and the Count’s parents, the clergy, they were all concerned. Delahada could become prince - or king - of Aragon with just the right sway of power, after all.
Countess Ygraine’s time was coming up quickly, they told her. Magdalena merely nodded, going about her work. She had work, she would tell them, and so had they. Her virtue was a palpable thing, and always had been.
Despite that, she had such dreams of the Count. Of how strong and hard his body was. Of how his hands would grasp her possessively, how he would command her mouth and take all of her body as his own.
Strange dreams for a maiden. She longed to speak of them to Arabella, who had become her fast friend from the moment she arrived at the castle. Arabella, head laundress, oversaw all of the women servants of the castle, and was long trusted by the Count.
Arabella was older, and wiser, and knew the ways of court. She had set aside a lovely little apartment for Magdalena, which had a bedstead and table, a mattress of feathers, and linens upon it. It was as fine as a room given to a guest, nearly, and much more than a place in the servants kennels that Magdalena had expected.
Often, Arabella would come meet and chat with Magdalena before it was time to sleep. She would inquire about Magdalena’s work, and her health, and amuse her with stories of times gone by. Always, she would bring a little plate of biscuits and a cup of spiced wine to share, though she usually insisted that Magdalena consume it all.
“You are so small and thin, dear girl, I worry a gust of cold wind will take you away from us,” Arabella would croon.
Then the older woman would help her to bed, and it seemed Magdalena could barely move after that. She would lay numb and immobile until those vivid dreams of the Count came and went.
Of course, Magdalena finally did gain weight. Although Arabella seemed pleased about it, and assured her all was well, the other maids stared at her belly and breasts and whispered between themselves.
The Marshall of the castle came for her one day, taking her from the dairy to the great hall, where the Countess sat in the oriole window, embroidering with her ladies.
“You horrid little slut! I should have known from the moment you arrived! Send her forth to the abbey and have her sins punished!” Ygraine had shrieked the moment she laid eyes upon the wretched young woman.
“You overstep your duties, Madam.”
The Steward of the castle came to Magdalena’s rescue. He absently gestured to the Marshall, who bowed and assisted Magdalena back to her feet. As he returned her to her dairy, she could hear the countess screeching in fury at the Steward. He heard none of it, simply turning as the Marshall and Magdalena stepped from the great hall.
“The Count will see to this, Madam.”
The Count was away. He had business. Yet, he soon sent a note to the Steward regarding the incident, another to the Marshall and the Chaplain: Ygraine was to be sent to a nunnery far from the castle, as he already had indulgence to divorce her for failing to produce an heir, or child at all.
Ygraine had enamored the Marshall of her, but he was a man true to the Count. He would not take arms against the man, as she pleaded, however, he would make the Steward and Chaplain wait to take her away until the Count returned.
The gossip flew over the summer. If the Countess was to show a child, as she insisted she would, it obviously must be sired by the Marshall. Others whispered that she would rather become a nun than to take her husband or any man into her bed.
When the whispers turned towards how the Countess had given a pearl earring to a page in order that he should publicly dishonor the dairy maid, and the youth realized well enough that his lot would be death as much as Magdalena’s that the Steward had enough nonsense.
The Marshall refused to allow the Steward to imprison the Countess, and refused to hear the page’s words. So, the Steward had Magdalena placed into a cell. It was small, but it had been made comfortable with a straw bed, linens, and a blanket. She was given wool to spin and reeds to plait to keep her occupied.
All was well, at first.
The Countess appeared at the door, sneering through the iron bars at the other woman.
“I will take that brat as mine own, and you will be hung as a witch, for how else could you make such fine cheese and butter? I have sent letters to those men who will find such monsters as you, telling them of your sins, and they will soon come and judge you and have you hung.”
Magdalena didn’t understand, not at first. She had no brat. Her grandmother, her sweet nana, would twitter and laugh in the liquid sunshine of a child’s mind, and say ‘oh, my darling, fairies bring babies. Like you, a little bun, a little fairy-cake.’
“I will have that baby as mine own, and should it be male, I will raise him to be the filthy libertine and liar that his father is,” Ygraine taunted, gripping the bars so hard, Magdalena could see her knuckles ghostly against white skin, “A horrible pig who gladly poisons you so he can have his way with you and never hear you protest. How many other girls has he defiled as you? Never worry, for your son will defile and use and ruin even more!”
Other times, Ygraine stood in the antechamber where the gaoler simply ignored her, drinking his ale and occasionally speaking to his underlings and wife. Ygraine stood there, and ranted, and raved, while she glared at the heavy oak door between her and Magdalena.
“How could he fuck her?! Her!? When I am here!? I, who is far more beautiful, with the finest of perfumes and my breeding is impeccable, yet not one time will he have me?! Beware, he loves not maidens, that stupid twat Marie said, but clearly he does! And it should have been me, not that broody little beast and her stupid cheese!”
“Courtly men will pursue the dairy maid, for they must be as pure and clean as their milk,” the gaoler muttered, fed up with Ygraine’s yammering.
Next she knew, Ygraine had slops thrown upon her. She stood in shock. Yet soon Arabella and Mary were there to help her clean. It happened again, and again…
Soon she was too exhausted to raise from the pile of straw. What had been a lovely bed became filthy, foul, the linens stained and ruined.
“It’s coming upon us quickly,” Mary had told her husband, deeply concerned.
“We’ll weather it, woman,” he had grunted.
Magdalena listened for as long as she could.
“The Count is dead. He died of it just a mile from the castle.”
“The Marshall is dead, no one cares about your damn woes, woman.”
“Dig a big hole. There is no waiting for graves, too many died last night. We can’t leave them out giving sickness to everyone else.”
“Dear girl, forgive me. He made me give you potions so you would not fight him. Forgive me though I am sure I will still burn in hell for my sins.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll die soon. I won’t let that woman take him,” Mary had whispered, and wrapped him with her own shawl. That is when Magdalena knew that fairies didn’t bring babies. Babies came clawing their way out of their mother’s body in a horrible confusion and blood and matter.
I have to kill him or he will become a monster.
Yet as Magdalena gazed upon the sleeping infant, she knew she could not hurt him. She sighed faintly with a slight smile upon her lips. She touched the thick black hair on his head.
“If only, my little man, we could bring the destruction the brutes of power deserve upon them. How I would revel to raise a monster like that.”
“Gaoler Rud…” she said, turning as she spoke to the man. To tell him he had neglected to lock her door. Yet, as she did, she realized he was quite dead, and had been for a few days. He held the keys in his hand.
He had unlocked her door.
Frowning, she looked up, and then began the slow climb of steps from the gaol to the battery and men’s quarters. None were there. It was all empty, filthy, blood, urine, feces, vomit, it was nearly everywhere.
The kitchens, the bakery, the chapel, everything, it was all empty save for the vile reminders of life.
Magdalena found them all, finally. All of them. Piled into a wide open grave. She could see Arabella. Mary. The Countess.
She stared. And the last man standing, the gaoler, had come and waited for her to die, but she did not. He had.
“I pray for you all, I hope you were each as kind in your heart of hearts as Rud,” she whispered, stricken.
She was hungry, so went to the kitchen and found bread to eat. She saw the wine, and watered it to drink nearly a gallon. She was so thirsty still.
She walked to the great hall, carrying her babe. Perhaps she would find some guidance there. Some echo of the sensible voice of the Steward, or the kind tones of the chaplain or… even the strident screech of Ygraine would be welcome in that place of the dead.
She sat on the great chair when her babe cried of hunger. She put him to her breast, grimacing as she saw how filthy they were.
“My little savior. For I cannot just lay down in the big grave and wait to die, can I? Not when you and I both have much to learn.”
It was over a year later when a large company of men and horses came to her gates. The gates of the castle Delahada. Her castle. It was hers, now. She had cleaned away the filth, she had scrubbed each stone. She had even managed to drag Gaoler Rud to his last rest, and rolled him so his hand touched that of his wife, now mostly decayed.
She raised the remaining goats and sheep, the cows, the chickens and geese. She planted vegetables, she planted peas. She and her son survived that first winter after the Black Death had spread its tattered wings over all of the known world.
She was a laughably tiny thing standing in the lately opened gatehouse. They stared at her as she stared at them. She had managed the heavy doors of the gatehouse and now, in absence of an usher or gateman, stood before them.
“I am Sheridan Driscol, madam, I have been sent from the throne of Aragon to see to the health of the Count Delahada,” he announced. An Englishman heading the men of Aragon, a very strange thing, but he explained.
“I am a personal friend of the Count, I know him well, and can recognize him on sight.”
“I can give you only sorrow, if you are a friend, Sir, for he was among the first taken by the horrible disease which has ravaged this castle. Only I, and my son, have survived,” she replied simply.
The men whispered among themselves. Shocked more that the woman and her babe had survived than to have found an entire castle of the dead.
“I am Countess Faye Delahada, and this is Salvador Delahada, son of the Count, and heir. We need assistance, dear gentlemen, for we have no servants, no men at arms, no steward to oversee the Count’s lands and interests until Salvador is grown,” she announced calmly, raising her chin.
“I shall take control as steward for young Salvador and see him properly raised and educated for his birthright,” Sheridan replied gravely, “Gentleman, inspect the castle and bring me inventory of what remains. Esteban, return to the vill… No. They are all but dead, too. I am afraid you must return to the king and tell him of the devastation we have found, and bring back with you men and supplies.”
“Here is the divorce decree for Ygraine,” Sheridan noted as he sifted through the papers and documents upon the steward’s desk, “And when the Count last wrote me, he was very excited to say he was negotiating a child from a fairy.”
Faye nodded calmly.
“I hoped that this did not mean he had followed the advice of his laundress and found a woman he found appealing, brought her here, drugged her and…” Sheridan paused, distressed and gave a gesture to the babe. Faye nodded once more. Sheridan exhaled slowly.
“I am sorry.”
“This lies between him and Almighty. I forgave Arabella,” Faye replied calmly. Did she forgive? She only knew that she was no longer the pristine and pure maiden of the dairy. Her child had been born into plague and filth. She had survived it.
“I will make sure there is a declaration of marriage. That Salvador is accepted as heir,” Sheridan promised, “Tell me what you will want.”
Faye shifted Salvador in her arms, then obligingly let him down to the floor as he squirmed impatiently. He was already a most independent mite, but adored his mother. He was most suspicious of all of the people who had arrived, though he was scarce but a year old.
“I want to know more of you, Mr. Driscol, for you could have taken all from us with but a few words. You have put yourself in a position of servitude instead of usurping the title of your friend - he has no other heir but Salvador, after all, and I have no way to prove that.”
“Once I am in service, dear lady, none may expect me to aspire to any titles other than the ones I find worthy,” he replied with a faint smile, “Not to mention I will not harm a woman or child. You both have been through far too much, as a gentleman, I am in the position to assure that you will be well treated and Salvador be well raised.”
“So we protect each other,” Faye ventured, and Sheridan smiled with a faint nod.
“You will allow me to exult in my music, and I will give you all you need and want.”
“I want to learn to read,” she replied simply, “And my son must become a man who I shall take great pride in.”
There was something disturbing in how Faye spoke, but Sheridan only agreed with her. She had been deeply abused and traumatized, after all, only to somehow survive the Black Plague. It made sense that there would be something strange and dangerous about her as she shed away the innocent dairy maid she had been.
When the fall came, and winds carried fangs to cut unprotected skin, when ice crystals formed in rotted leaves to skate out from under the unwary boot, Faye took her boy by the hand and walked into the woods.
There he would play. He learned how filth was all part of the process of cleansing. He learned that he had a place in that cleansing.
How he laughed in delight and returned to his mother’s loving arms.
Faye hasn't been seen in a while... but I always remember her strange distance and grace...
Her eyes snapped open.
Nothing registered save for a blinding, piercing thirst. She staggered, she crawled, she slithered like a wounded serpent until she saw before her a jug. A beautiful clay jug. So glorious. So perfect. Pristine.
She snatched it up and guzzled down the contents heedlessly.
Curdled milk. She bit through the cheese and gladly drank down the whey.
It had been left three days too long, her mind informed her primly.
She didn’t care. She dropped the jug and shambled to her feet with the strength borrowed from the awful drink. Another jug, old and stained with many a libation and more hands, ill washed. She drained it in an instant.
Nasty old wine. She didn’t care. She dropped the jug and reached for another, tearing it from the stiff grasp of the overweight oaf of a gaoler. Ale, weak and smelling of sweat. Finally, she could breath.
If she could. The room was rank, filled with the thick odor of decay and death, filth and disease. She caught her breath and pushed back her hair. Her hand stopped as it encountered the thick, sweaty, disgusting mass that should have been her beautiful and clean waves of dark hair.
She was filthy, she noted, looking down at herself as horror began to knock at her mind. Filthy. Her clothing were rags, embedded with dirt, grease, blood, vomit, urine. Her skin. Her feet. And in her arms…
She stared at the babe in something between confusion and dismay. He was wrapped in a few winds of cloth. It seemed to be the shawl belonging to the gaoler’s wife, Mary.
“Don’t worry,” Mary had whispered, “I’m sure he’ll die soon.”
It was meant to be a comfort.
“I won’t let that woman take him.”
That had been a comfort, and with those remembered words, her world came rushing back. Sobs broke from her. Her shoulders crushed. She hovered over the poor mite.
He was pale, but healthy. Strong. She could feel his heart, his breathing.
But to save him, to spare him, she must end him.
Less than a year before, she had been Magdalena, a celebrated dairy maid, known for her fine and delicate cheeses, her pure and sweet butter, her wonderful cleanliness. Her purity. When she went to market, her wares were contested, argued and once even fought over, so that it was decided that her goods must be auctioned fairly.
Women would come to her little dairy and watch her keenly to learn her secrets. Clergy would offer her riches and indulgences to share with them her secrets. Men would promise her the world for her secrets and more.
It was all very simple, really, Magdalena’s father built for her a dairy of good, clean stone, plastered it in limestone, and all of it was over a deep and cold spring. She kept herself as clean and cool as she kept her dairy.
But even though she would tell any who wanted to know what these mysteries of hers were, they imagined there must be more. There was more, of course. Her sense of smell was delicate, and she knew which milk would turn over soon, and the way best to make it serve. Her mother had taught her all the ways to preserve the butters, cheeses, and creams.
It was no miracle, but to those lacking in her patience, her skill and knowledge - and her natural refrigerator - they would always fall short of her.
Then He arrived. Dashing, handsome, impossibly wealthy. He gave her valuable spices - coriander, cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon - to make up with her cheese. He gave her beautiful white linen to make up new clothing. He gave her a carved tortoiseshell comb to clean her hair with, with little picks of the same to clean her nails and ears with.
He understood the work. Her work. He understood her dairy. He had built one like to hers, he promised, even better, for it was shaded by a larger building. There was a fresh and cold spring that rose beneath it.
He promised her twenty pence a week, her food and drink and lodging provided, all to be good quality, with good meat twice a week. He promised her that she would have Sundays to worship, and two days a month to visit her parents. She would be allowed to use a donkey to visit them. He had all of those things written and taken to have her priest read and sign it.
She did not know how to read, but would never question her clergy. They would never allow her to be harmed or abused.
And so she gathered up what was hers, hugged and kissed her mother and father, and climbed to the back of the donkey sent for her. In a few days time, she gazed upon the nearly finished castle of Count Delahada of Yarte.
Her mistress became the lovely and sultry Countess Ygraine, who replaced the lovely and sunny Countess Marie, who in turn replaced the lovely and red headed Countess Iona. Though Magdalena had no interest in gossip, the maids were quick to fill her in.
In five years, there had been no sign of an heir, and the Count’s parents, the clergy, they were all concerned. Delahada could become prince - or king - of Aragon with just the right sway of power, after all.
Countess Ygraine’s time was coming up quickly, they told her. Magdalena merely nodded, going about her work. She had work, she would tell them, and so had they. Her virtue was a palpable thing, and always had been.
Despite that, she had such dreams of the Count. Of how strong and hard his body was. Of how his hands would grasp her possessively, how he would command her mouth and take all of her body as his own.
Strange dreams for a maiden. She longed to speak of them to Arabella, who had become her fast friend from the moment she arrived at the castle. Arabella, head laundress, oversaw all of the women servants of the castle, and was long trusted by the Count.
Arabella was older, and wiser, and knew the ways of court. She had set aside a lovely little apartment for Magdalena, which had a bedstead and table, a mattress of feathers, and linens upon it. It was as fine as a room given to a guest, nearly, and much more than a place in the servants kennels that Magdalena had expected.
Often, Arabella would come meet and chat with Magdalena before it was time to sleep. She would inquire about Magdalena’s work, and her health, and amuse her with stories of times gone by. Always, she would bring a little plate of biscuits and a cup of spiced wine to share, though she usually insisted that Magdalena consume it all.
“You are so small and thin, dear girl, I worry a gust of cold wind will take you away from us,” Arabella would croon.
Then the older woman would help her to bed, and it seemed Magdalena could barely move after that. She would lay numb and immobile until those vivid dreams of the Count came and went.
Of course, Magdalena finally did gain weight. Although Arabella seemed pleased about it, and assured her all was well, the other maids stared at her belly and breasts and whispered between themselves.
The Marshall of the castle came for her one day, taking her from the dairy to the great hall, where the Countess sat in the oriole window, embroidering with her ladies.
“You horrid little slut! I should have known from the moment you arrived! Send her forth to the abbey and have her sins punished!” Ygraine had shrieked the moment she laid eyes upon the wretched young woman.
“You overstep your duties, Madam.”
The Steward of the castle came to Magdalena’s rescue. He absently gestured to the Marshall, who bowed and assisted Magdalena back to her feet. As he returned her to her dairy, she could hear the countess screeching in fury at the Steward. He heard none of it, simply turning as the Marshall and Magdalena stepped from the great hall.
“The Count will see to this, Madam.”
The Count was away. He had business. Yet, he soon sent a note to the Steward regarding the incident, another to the Marshall and the Chaplain: Ygraine was to be sent to a nunnery far from the castle, as he already had indulgence to divorce her for failing to produce an heir, or child at all.
Ygraine had enamored the Marshall of her, but he was a man true to the Count. He would not take arms against the man, as she pleaded, however, he would make the Steward and Chaplain wait to take her away until the Count returned.
The gossip flew over the summer. If the Countess was to show a child, as she insisted she would, it obviously must be sired by the Marshall. Others whispered that she would rather become a nun than to take her husband or any man into her bed.
When the whispers turned towards how the Countess had given a pearl earring to a page in order that he should publicly dishonor the dairy maid, and the youth realized well enough that his lot would be death as much as Magdalena’s that the Steward had enough nonsense.
The Marshall refused to allow the Steward to imprison the Countess, and refused to hear the page’s words. So, the Steward had Magdalena placed into a cell. It was small, but it had been made comfortable with a straw bed, linens, and a blanket. She was given wool to spin and reeds to plait to keep her occupied.
All was well, at first.
The Countess appeared at the door, sneering through the iron bars at the other woman.
“I will take that brat as mine own, and you will be hung as a witch, for how else could you make such fine cheese and butter? I have sent letters to those men who will find such monsters as you, telling them of your sins, and they will soon come and judge you and have you hung.”
Magdalena didn’t understand, not at first. She had no brat. Her grandmother, her sweet nana, would twitter and laugh in the liquid sunshine of a child’s mind, and say ‘oh, my darling, fairies bring babies. Like you, a little bun, a little fairy-cake.’
“I will have that baby as mine own, and should it be male, I will raise him to be the filthy libertine and liar that his father is,” Ygraine taunted, gripping the bars so hard, Magdalena could see her knuckles ghostly against white skin, “A horrible pig who gladly poisons you so he can have his way with you and never hear you protest. How many other girls has he defiled as you? Never worry, for your son will defile and use and ruin even more!”
Other times, Ygraine stood in the antechamber where the gaoler simply ignored her, drinking his ale and occasionally speaking to his underlings and wife. Ygraine stood there, and ranted, and raved, while she glared at the heavy oak door between her and Magdalena.
“How could he fuck her?! Her!? When I am here!? I, who is far more beautiful, with the finest of perfumes and my breeding is impeccable, yet not one time will he have me?! Beware, he loves not maidens, that stupid twat Marie said, but clearly he does! And it should have been me, not that broody little beast and her stupid cheese!”
“Courtly men will pursue the dairy maid, for they must be as pure and clean as their milk,” the gaoler muttered, fed up with Ygraine’s yammering.
Next she knew, Ygraine had slops thrown upon her. She stood in shock. Yet soon Arabella and Mary were there to help her clean. It happened again, and again…
Soon she was too exhausted to raise from the pile of straw. What had been a lovely bed became filthy, foul, the linens stained and ruined.
“It’s coming upon us quickly,” Mary had told her husband, deeply concerned.
“We’ll weather it, woman,” he had grunted.
Magdalena listened for as long as she could.
“The Count is dead. He died of it just a mile from the castle.”
“The Marshall is dead, no one cares about your damn woes, woman.”
“Dig a big hole. There is no waiting for graves, too many died last night. We can’t leave them out giving sickness to everyone else.”
“Dear girl, forgive me. He made me give you potions so you would not fight him. Forgive me though I am sure I will still burn in hell for my sins.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure he’ll die soon. I won’t let that woman take him,” Mary had whispered, and wrapped him with her own shawl. That is when Magdalena knew that fairies didn’t bring babies. Babies came clawing their way out of their mother’s body in a horrible confusion and blood and matter.
I have to kill him or he will become a monster.
Yet as Magdalena gazed upon the sleeping infant, she knew she could not hurt him. She sighed faintly with a slight smile upon her lips. She touched the thick black hair on his head.
“If only, my little man, we could bring the destruction the brutes of power deserve upon them. How I would revel to raise a monster like that.”
“Gaoler Rud…” she said, turning as she spoke to the man. To tell him he had neglected to lock her door. Yet, as she did, she realized he was quite dead, and had been for a few days. He held the keys in his hand.
He had unlocked her door.
Frowning, she looked up, and then began the slow climb of steps from the gaol to the battery and men’s quarters. None were there. It was all empty, filthy, blood, urine, feces, vomit, it was nearly everywhere.
The kitchens, the bakery, the chapel, everything, it was all empty save for the vile reminders of life.
Magdalena found them all, finally. All of them. Piled into a wide open grave. She could see Arabella. Mary. The Countess.
She stared. And the last man standing, the gaoler, had come and waited for her to die, but she did not. He had.
“I pray for you all, I hope you were each as kind in your heart of hearts as Rud,” she whispered, stricken.
She was hungry, so went to the kitchen and found bread to eat. She saw the wine, and watered it to drink nearly a gallon. She was so thirsty still.
She walked to the great hall, carrying her babe. Perhaps she would find some guidance there. Some echo of the sensible voice of the Steward, or the kind tones of the chaplain or… even the strident screech of Ygraine would be welcome in that place of the dead.
She sat on the great chair when her babe cried of hunger. She put him to her breast, grimacing as she saw how filthy they were.
“My little savior. For I cannot just lay down in the big grave and wait to die, can I? Not when you and I both have much to learn.”
It was over a year later when a large company of men and horses came to her gates. The gates of the castle Delahada. Her castle. It was hers, now. She had cleaned away the filth, she had scrubbed each stone. She had even managed to drag Gaoler Rud to his last rest, and rolled him so his hand touched that of his wife, now mostly decayed.
She raised the remaining goats and sheep, the cows, the chickens and geese. She planted vegetables, she planted peas. She and her son survived that first winter after the Black Death had spread its tattered wings over all of the known world.
She was a laughably tiny thing standing in the lately opened gatehouse. They stared at her as she stared at them. She had managed the heavy doors of the gatehouse and now, in absence of an usher or gateman, stood before them.
“I am Sheridan Driscol, madam, I have been sent from the throne of Aragon to see to the health of the Count Delahada,” he announced. An Englishman heading the men of Aragon, a very strange thing, but he explained.
“I am a personal friend of the Count, I know him well, and can recognize him on sight.”
“I can give you only sorrow, if you are a friend, Sir, for he was among the first taken by the horrible disease which has ravaged this castle. Only I, and my son, have survived,” she replied simply.
The men whispered among themselves. Shocked more that the woman and her babe had survived than to have found an entire castle of the dead.
“I am Countess Faye Delahada, and this is Salvador Delahada, son of the Count, and heir. We need assistance, dear gentlemen, for we have no servants, no men at arms, no steward to oversee the Count’s lands and interests until Salvador is grown,” she announced calmly, raising her chin.
“I shall take control as steward for young Salvador and see him properly raised and educated for his birthright,” Sheridan replied gravely, “Gentleman, inspect the castle and bring me inventory of what remains. Esteban, return to the vill… No. They are all but dead, too. I am afraid you must return to the king and tell him of the devastation we have found, and bring back with you men and supplies.”
“Here is the divorce decree for Ygraine,” Sheridan noted as he sifted through the papers and documents upon the steward’s desk, “And when the Count last wrote me, he was very excited to say he was negotiating a child from a fairy.”
Faye nodded calmly.
“I hoped that this did not mean he had followed the advice of his laundress and found a woman he found appealing, brought her here, drugged her and…” Sheridan paused, distressed and gave a gesture to the babe. Faye nodded once more. Sheridan exhaled slowly.
“I am sorry.”
“This lies between him and Almighty. I forgave Arabella,” Faye replied calmly. Did she forgive? She only knew that she was no longer the pristine and pure maiden of the dairy. Her child had been born into plague and filth. She had survived it.
“I will make sure there is a declaration of marriage. That Salvador is accepted as heir,” Sheridan promised, “Tell me what you will want.”
Faye shifted Salvador in her arms, then obligingly let him down to the floor as he squirmed impatiently. He was already a most independent mite, but adored his mother. He was most suspicious of all of the people who had arrived, though he was scarce but a year old.
“I want to know more of you, Mr. Driscol, for you could have taken all from us with but a few words. You have put yourself in a position of servitude instead of usurping the title of your friend - he has no other heir but Salvador, after all, and I have no way to prove that.”
“Once I am in service, dear lady, none may expect me to aspire to any titles other than the ones I find worthy,” he replied with a faint smile, “Not to mention I will not harm a woman or child. You both have been through far too much, as a gentleman, I am in the position to assure that you will be well treated and Salvador be well raised.”
“So we protect each other,” Faye ventured, and Sheridan smiled with a faint nod.
“You will allow me to exult in my music, and I will give you all you need and want.”
“I want to learn to read,” she replied simply, “And my son must become a man who I shall take great pride in.”
There was something disturbing in how Faye spoke, but Sheridan only agreed with her. She had been deeply abused and traumatized, after all, only to somehow survive the Black Plague. It made sense that there would be something strange and dangerous about her as she shed away the innocent dairy maid she had been.
When the fall came, and winds carried fangs to cut unprotected skin, when ice crystals formed in rotted leaves to skate out from under the unwary boot, Faye took her boy by the hand and walked into the woods.
There he would play. He learned how filth was all part of the process of cleansing. He learned that he had a place in that cleansing.
How he laughed in delight and returned to his mother’s loving arms.
Fantastically Ordinary
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