The Adventures of Leto in Wonderland, Part Two, Thursday Night Fandom-Time (NFB-distance)
Leto
He felt tired and weak. He knew he shouldn't be either. This world seemed to drain him, and he wondered what it did to Alice. Or was this her way to slow him down?
He was the desert storm that couldn't be stopped.
Stumbling into a wood, he reflected that he had lost his sense of direction. Would Alice hide in a forest, among... what were they called again? Leto shook his head. He knew the word, even if he didn't use it often. Was this a sign of exhaustion?
He took another step, then leaned against one of those large things. Not like... what? He couldn't think of the name. The place where he lived, where he belonged. Dryness, he remembered.
Leto sank to his knees. What was this? He was going to call out her name again, she whom he was searching for, but found he couldn't remember it. With a sigh, he collapsed on the ground.
Al ...
The girl on the ground was trying to become a tree.
She had fled to Wonderland to escape something, though she was starting to forget what. (That part was good.)
She had fought valiantly, she believed; her ... what was the word again? The sharp item, which she used to kill monsters. It was all wet with red liquid, which meant she had succeeded. Nothing had helped. In a panic, she had come here, to the woods.
These were a very special sort of woods; they were the woods where no names could be remembered. The longer one stayed, and the deeper one went in, the more names went away. This spot had scared her, when she and the Fawn had first discovered it, on her trip through ... through ... wherever-it-is-she-was-going; at that time, the girl had longed to remember. It had provided more solace later, when she sought to forget.
Al ... A .... no, it was gone. But she, the girl, had decided to stay here.
She had an idea that if she stayed very still for very long, that she might become a ... oh, she had just thought the word earlier. The tall, brown things with green bits on the end. And she could stay on this hill with the other tall-brown-things, and her green bits would fall and regrow, and that would be perfectly fine for her.
It would take a very, very long time of lying perfectly still to become a tall brown thing, but she-the-nameless-girl was very good at lying perfectly still. Especially when it helped her to forget.
She had been very still for a long time, but not a very long time -- (it was hard to measure time without names. It wasn't the short times used to measure how long one could hold one's breath, nor was it the very long time required to grow one's hair out from a bad cut; more the time one might spend on a short vacation, perhaps?) -- when someone else came into the woods.
Not just someone, but Someone. She knew him. She knew his name, although she did not remember it. She knew that he was important to her, in some manner. And she knew that there were things he ought to be doing, things that were far more important than becoming tall brown things.
And so, although it would set back her not-inconsiderable progress towards becoming one, she chose to speak.
"Are you lost?"
That voice was so familiar. He looked up, about to call a name that he found he couldn't remember. His skin stung and he knew that was because it wasn't dry enough here. Small amounts of a dangerous substance, just enough to hurt.
"Who are you?"
That was responding with another question, but he felt sure this one knew how to answer.
She opened her mouth, but no sounds came out.
"I don't know," she said. "I've had no name for ... for ... oh, I don't know that, either. The time it takes the bright ball in the sky to go around a few times."
She had sat up, slightly, for this important information, and now she laid herself back down.
"I'm nobody of importance," she said. "Anyway, I'm going to become a tree."
Her words caused a flow of emotions - sadness mingled with anger. He might not remember her name - or his own, he noticed, but he knew this:
"You are important. You are terribly important. To me and to someone else. Someone needs you. How can you be content to become part of this place?"
"You're sad," she said, wondering slightly at that. She frowned at him, feeling as though that were wrong, somehow, for him to be sad.
She had been sad when she came here. Terribly sad. She could remember that. She had cried until her eyes itched, and then there had been no more tears to cry, and she had realized she had no inclination to ever leave this wood. No reason to move ever again. And that was when she had decided to stay here until she became a ... a ... brown thing. She had known the name a moment ago. It would come back to her.
She was still sad, she supposed, but it was safe to be sad here. It didn't threaten to engulf one and drag one down into the deep. All was muted and safe.
"I'm not content," she said. "No one is content here. This isn't that sort of a place. Why have you come here?"
Why else, if not to forget?
"I am sad," he acknowledged. "And I came here to look for you."
He was a little less clear on why. There were reasons, but they seemed so distant, and there were others but he couldn't recall their names.
"I waited for you for a long time, and I was angry when you learnt you had been hiding from me." He remembered the feeling, but no details.
Hiding? How curious. She was sure that she was hiding, now. Had she been, then? Why should she hide from him?
Feelings, she could remember, if vaguely. Names and circumstances, those were harder.
"I was ... afraid," she said, speaking slowly as if she were tasting each word. "Something changed, while you were gone, and I was frightened. I didn't ... know ... what to do."
It hurt, trying to remember again. It made her want to dig down deep into the moss and try very hard to be a tree again.
See? She could remember 'tree.' That was a bad sign, itself.
"I knew that." He did, even if he didn't know why. "But I could have helped you. Comforted you. Why did you want to be alone?"
Without remembering the specifics and the details, the raw emotions became clearer, he noted.
Why, why could he not leave, and let her be alone, feelingless, empty, a beautiful white birch alone in this wood forever?
"But ... you would be happy," she said. "It was a ... a ... I don't know what it's called. A good thing, an unexpected thing, something one might have prayed and wished for. I had no wish to take that from you."
It was so much easier to be honest here. Maybe if she were honest, he would leave, and she could be a tall brown thing.
"I thought you might think less of me."
He turned his head to look at her. "I wouldn't be happy without you. The only way you could take something from me is by leaving, and that's what you did." He felt angry, but had no energy to really express it.
"Why would I think less of you? Why?"
"Because of what you're asking me now!" Alice insisted. "I never had a choice in this. I should have welcomed the news, but I didn't. I wished to run very far away, but I couldn't. I knew that you would be happy. I knew this was ..."
So much was coming back to her. She wished it wouldn't. If she tried harder, she could block it out.
"Your only chance," she said. "I couldn't ask you to give that up. I could never put you in the horrible position of having to choose. And I couldn't stay with you without ... accepting this thing, for myself. So I would ferry that chance to you, and walk away, and you would think me brave, or noble, or something. Instead of realizing that I was running from her as fast as I possibly could."
"You didn't want her." He realised he had known that. He also knew that made him angry. "Someone walked away from me like you walked away from her. I wasn't alone." He remembered laughter and warmth. "But it was never enough. I knew reasons, but they were never enough."
He drew a breath. "She'll wonder for the rest of her life why she wasn't enough, and no reason will be enough to comfort her."
"That's very sad," Alice said, harshly. "Am I to feel terrible, then, that she will be sad? We're all sad. Life is sad. How very unfortunate for us all."
She closed her eyes again, hoping he might go away now.
"I never asked for this. I only wish to survive it. Perhaps you'll tell me when I've done penance enough to suit you."
"I still don't understand why lying here and turning into... whatever is better than being with your family," he replied, anger now more audible. "If life is sad no matter what, why escape from it and hide? It will still be sad, won't it?"
"Because I won't be with any of you!" she snapped, and this time, her own anger caused her to sit up. "How can you not see that!? When the plague sweeps through the capital, when the whole of the desert planet floods, when h-her crib burns with her inside of it, I shall live. I shall go madder and madder still, until I am trapped within my own Hell with no way out again. I'll be a drooling corpse who lies in a bed and stares at a ceiling and listens to the orderlies mock her and prays nightly to a God who isn't listening that He grant her a death that will never come."
The tears were coming again. Damn everything. Trees didn't cry.
"There won't be a fire in the palace in a long time, or a plague in Arrakeen," he said pointedly, pushing himself up to sitting too. "I'd know if there were, before it happened. I don't know your future, or hers, but if you worry about disasters, I can tell you it's a waste of time!"
"It doesn't have to be a plague!" she insisted. "That isn't the point! You can't die, Leto, not for centuries, and that's the only reason you're safe!"
She did not realize she had even remembered his name, much less used it.
"She weighs less than my cat," she continued. "Someone could sit on her by mistake, and there, I've lost her forever. I can only be her mother if I don't care for her at all. Never mind what a terrible mother I'd be in the first place. She's better off, and we both know it."
Le ...
"No, we don't know that!" This was getting annoying. "You imagine you would. Do you think you would be solely responsible? Do you think there won't be enough people around to protect her that she'll learn how to escape them soon enough?" He was judging from his own childhood here.
"Who else is going to explain about your games, how to use a vorpal blade, what music to listen to? How to have a proper tea party? Or play flamingo croquet?"
None of that sounded like mothering to ... to ... her. (Hers was still gone, that was helpful.) Mothers were supposed to know everything, and kiss away bruises, and tuck in tired little ones at the end of the day. Mothers protected, and cheered, and lectured, and loved, and baked, and sewed, and set rules, and a hundred other things for which she had never been given a rulebook.
"She will play her own games," she said. "She w-w-will be beautiful, and proud, and strong, and I wish her every happiness, and I will be here so that I do not destroy her, and she does not destroy me. But I can't love her. I refuse. You can't make me. I will hold my breath and refuse a-a-a-and become the largest tree ever and never come out again and ..."
This was a perfectly logical approach, obviously. Never mind that she had started to cry again.
Leto
"Don't you want to play games with her?"
Had she voiced any of her concerns regarding mothering Leto would have pointed out that there were plenty of people around who could provide that, but none who could teach flamingo croquet.
Still angry, he nonetheless wanted to comfort her, and reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder.
She ... she did. She wanted to gobble the girl's fingers and toes. She wanted to brush her hair and sing to her. She wanted ... and there, her stomach dropped again. The same old fear. That she would love, and to love was to lose.
How childish. She already loved, and in being here, already lost.
She leaned forward, then, hoping that his arms might provide respite, even though he was angry.
"So very much," she said, softly, trying not to cry too badly upon his shoulder. "My fear is not cooperating."
After a rather unqueenly sniffle, she added, "You should not be here. You should be with her."
Leto
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "She's with Ghani," he said. "She's safe. And you chose to come here, so where else could I go?"
Anger and love lay so very close, and they could easily blend into each other.
Al...
She clung to him, breathing slowly. Somehow, even her worst fears seemed only shadows when he held her close.
"And if I were mad again?" she asked. "If she were lost, and all destroyed? Would you ... find me, even then?"
Leto
"It wasn't easy finding you here, so I think I'm rather good at it." He kissed her cheek. "I'd always try."
Alice
She was uncertain how he had found her. That was perhaps another discussion for another day.
"So you are asking me to trust you, then?" she said, offering him a hesitant smile. "That ... when the worst happens, should the worst happen, I do not need to come here and grow into a tree, or go mad again. That if I do, I will not be abandoned. You b-believe it is safe, or that it can be. I shall always have your sanctuary, the way you had mine."
That was, after all, what had started this mess; him finding her deep within the Spice Trance and seeking refuge.
"Alice," she said, abruptly. "I'm Alice. You're Leto, and ... oh. I still can't remember her name."
Leto
"Isn't that what loving someone means?" he said, returning the smile. He would have argued that that was what had started it all. "And I'm not sure she has one yet. I believe it's our responsibility to find one for her."
Alice
Perhaps he was right in that. Love had started it; the rest had been bumps along the way.
"Then we had better choose well," Alice mused. "Is there a Fremen word for 'resting-place'?"
Leto
"There is. Hania."
Alice did have a tendency to focus on the bad things. At some point, Leto would tell her that meant missing important details like that.
Alice
"Hania," Alice repeated. She tried it again, to see how it sounded in her mouth: "Hania."
She reluctantly let go of Leto, that she might dust off her clothes.
"Both descriptive and proscriptive," she said. "Telling her what she is, and what to be, for herself and for anyone else she chooses to share her solace with."
Leto
"It is a good name," Leto agreed. "And I would also call her Sihaya, which means 'desert spring'. My father used to call my mother that, and what would a resting-place be without water?"
He pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand towards Alice.
Alice
"Water, springing amongst the desert," she smiled. "Like the world of surprises in your Golden Path?"
She took his hand, and pulled herself up.
"I ... would add Matilda, if I might," she said, gently. "Not for any of its meanings. Just for Matilda."
Once upon a time, there were three little sisters, and their names were Elsie, Lacie and Tillie, and they lived at the bottom of a well. It was there that two died, and only one of them got to grow up. The third girl cried for a very long time, by the well's edge. But the other two finally insisted that she leave them behind. There was another little girl who needed to hear stories of dormice and tea parties.
Leto
"Yes," he said, almost laughing. "Something like that." He pulled her close again. "And of course you might. You are her mother. So, Hania Matilda Sihaya? I think we should go and inform her of her new name."
Alice
This was her last chance to run, to flee. All of her fears were screaming at her.
She had long been strong enough to survive, but that was not courage. Courage was being strong enough to live. This was, perhaps, a terrible mistake, but it seemed like a much better mistake than lying here as a tree.
She pressed her lips against his once and returned his smile.
"Let's," she answered.
(OOC: Part 2 of 2, and thus, le fin! As always, preplayed with the marveloso future_sandworm! Ghanima will be notified tonight, and birth notices might be going out tomorrow, now that things have settled and the wee one has her name. NFI, NFB, but OOC is always love.)