Background - Complete
-=-=- Vestigere -=-=-
I encounter him with startling regularity.
In my dreams, memories, dreams of memories, memories of dreams, I see his face. I feel his cold fingers as he grasps at me, feel how he takes what little warmth I’ve saved up in my body, takes it, takes it, takes it for his own.
And then he’s gone. Disappeared like he never existed, except that I’m back here, in the dark. I’d shiver if I could.
I run, run like the devil is on my heels. When I look back, I see nothing for a long time. I stop to catch my breath, to taste the air and I taste him. I don’t know what happens next. I wake in a dark box, the one I know is mine - it tastes like me.
-=-=- Durance -=-=-
The dark room is lit by a single sliver of light, and I reach out to it. My scales slide over the muscle, glittering in the dim light. My tongue flicks out, and I taste… heat. Fear. Rotting meat and cloying flowers.
This is wrong. This is my body, and yet not. My skin is covered in scales, my eyelids do not close. At the edge of my thoughts I can almost hear a word, a name that I know should be my own. I reach for it, but like the lit crescent, it too is just out of reach.
-=-=-
I am awakened by a hoarse and strangled scream that suddenly stops when I open my eyes. My world is dark but for a single silver line in the distance. Somehow I know on the other side of that line is something I want, something I need. It calls to me…
I taste fear and rotting meat around me, and when I stretch to reach the light, my scaled hands push into it, lifting the lid off my box. I stand in the silver light, unable to comprehend what is happening. A word floats into my head, and for once when I grasp after it, I touch it, take possession of it. The word is a name, and I recognize it as mine. Tanis.
-=-=- Interlude -=-=-
I remember things, sometimes: sitting indoors on overstuffed leather chairs, smooth under my fingertips, the smell of books. There are people here, lots of people. We whisper to each other, laughing and giggling, hushing each other when our giggles grow too loud, resulting in another round of helpless laughter.
My memories are bright things, light birds or butterflies - beautiful to watch, but fleeting, fluttering away on cool, autumn winds. Sometimes I want to chase after them, but another part stops me. Memories are more like butterflies after all - far more beautiful when glimpsed from afar, rather than crucified under glass.
-=-=-
I don’t think I am supposed to be covered in scales.
I look around, see others. Some are smoothly pink, look completely human. Others look like they have more than a little wolf or dog in them. A boy looks like he’s half dragon.
My scales are beautiful, green and gold, cool to the touch. The backs of my hands, my arms, reaching across my back. My neck, too, bears scales, which fade into my jaw. Light scales dapple across my brow, down my legs. I’m beautiful, I realize, even as my tongue finds its way out of my mouth, delicately forked.
-=-=- Durance -=-=-
She is the one who brought me to my garden. He is the one who took me from it. I alternately bless and curse them both when I can remember at all.
-=-=-
The garden where I live is beautiful. The high walls create a circle, and in the middle of it is a huge, sprawling apple tree. Eight paths lead radially from the tree, intersecting at the base, dividing the garden into parts, each a different theme.
I tend the garden. Because I do my duty well, I rarely see Her. For a long time, I am content. I sleep coiled around the trunk, enjoy the warm sun, make myself scarce when She entertains.
She only showed me once, and then I was taken to a dark room. I miss my garden.
-=-=- Vestigere -=-=-
I slither on my belly like the serpent I am called: I remember my name, and with that, I remember I’m not really a serpent. I stand erect, wondering how I got here.
Tanis.
The name floats into my view again, at once clear in my mind and hidden by the brambles. I turn, try to get my bearings. An ogre looms over me, pale and ugly, hair full of twigs.
I momentarily forget my name, wonder again how I got here.
“Tanis,” it calls me, voice a harsh whisper.
How ironic that the creature come to take me back gives me the key home.
“Tanis,” I repeat. A name, one that is my own. “Tanis,” I say again, giving voice to the only thing I can own.
The darkling takes me by the throat, but for the first time in… oh, ages, I’m not afraid. I am both serpent and not, and my creator gave me fangs. I twist in his grasp, willingly wrapping myself around his arm, snaking myself around his body. His grasp loosens a touch, and I constrict, sinking my fangs into his flesh as I do so. He staggers, rages, but I’m quicker than he is, quicker now that he has been poisoned. I fall to the ground, slither through the thorns, listen to his raging grow weaker. Flush with victory, I barely feel the Hedge as it, too, does its part to keep me from my escape.
-=-=- Cavanaugh’s -=-=-
They talk to me here, always talking. Voices float through my mind. On good days, I remember the faces they belong to. The rest... I find it difficult to remember names, or times, or when I’m supposed to come inside to eat. In a perfect world, I would eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired. They tell me that structure is important, that this is how it is on this side of the Hedge. People keep timetables, make appointments, watch clocks and pots and televisions. I watch people, instead, and learn more of them than they think me capable.
-=-=-
This is an easy place to be. They care for me, tell me polite and pretty things. They let me play in the gardens like I did when I was first taken. I would spend forever in the gardens if I could, but eventually it grows cold. I remember seasons, and for the first time, the concept of time takes shape in my head. Time suddenly has form, something tangible that I can touch and see.
I still can’t make appointments to save my life.
-=-=- Eli -=-=-
It irritates him that I can’t remember his name. I try and I try, but as soon as I think I have it, it eludes me again. I like him, though. Some of the people here are loud, or they make sudden movements that scare me. He moves softly around me, speaks in a kind voice, even when I can’t remember his name. He gives me small gifts, bits of chocolate, seedlings found just inside the Hedge. I eat the candy, plant the flowers and trees. I remember my manners and thank him, give him the bounty I grow. We sit together in the garden and sometimes he talks and sometimes I talk. I learn the meaning of the word ‘friend’.
-=-=-
He helps me, my friend. As time goes on, as seasons pass, I learn more. I can follow a trail at the lightly wooded edge of the property. I remember more of herblore than I do of names, but I can also make a cup of coffee, cook for myself, follow directions. I write everything into little books, and the act of writing helps me to remember. I find joy in my existence, in his existence. I learn to accept and understand abstractions, those things that can’t be touched but deeply felt, nonetheless. Eventually, I remember his name as he accompanies me across the country as I follow shreds of memory. Eli. He is as haunted by his past as I am unfettered by mine. I take the lesson given to me: the past is just so. Our future is ahead. I can only affect change in the things around me.
I discover joy.
-=-=- The Mild Garden -=-=-
The halfway house has a garden, overgrown and neglected. I take care of it, gently coaxing it back to life, bringing order to the chaos in exchange for room and board. The ever-changing boarders usually ignore me. Sometimes a chatty one will talk to me while I kneel, pulling weeds. They tell me things, sometimes terrible things, as if by telling me they will find absolution. I nod, let them ramble. Some leave the house soon afterwards, their bodies are found later. Some are so surprised when I speak back, that they fall backwards on the walk and I laugh.
-=-=-
There is a constant stream of people that come through here; police bring them, sometimes they wander in by themselves. The old woman who cared for the house grows older and weaker. I care for her, keep her company, tend to the house, its garden, its people. Another woman cares for me, and somehow, we manage. The old woman dies, as people do, and I feel a sharp pang in my gut, below my heart, above my stomach. The woman who cares for me calls it regret, isn’t phased by my questions. I’ll keep her as long as she’ll stay.
-=-=- Innkeeping -=-=-
It is a warm night, the heat from the day still radiating from the ground. I lie flat against it, luxuriating in the warmth. For the moment, the tools of my gardening lie to the side while I revel.
Crash.
I look up as a frightened man comes bursting through the brush that marks the Hedge. He spots me, turns to run, and falls to his knees, unable to continue.
I take him in, to my home, the shelter it’s become. The women watch with terrified eyes as I dress his wounds, giving over my own bed for his comfort.
-=-=-
I return to Cavanaugh’s, briefly, unsure of why I go or with what purpose. The grounds haven’t changed at all and for a time I sit under a chestnut tree like I used to. When old Cavanaugh finds me, I ask questions, use my notebooks to tell him of the things I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished. I imagine that this is how a child feels when she tells her father what she’s done. He smiles kindly, tells me of the Innkeepers over a cup of tea. When I return to California, I have a purpose, well-defined and awesome in scope.
-=-=-
A man stands at the gate to the front garden where I replant my seedlings. I can taste rich earth and warm air, and forget for a moment that he is still standing there. He is sad and angry, vacillating between those two extremes. I babble about my plants and put him at ease, more by accident than anything. After a time, he talks. We drink my tea and I teach him. It is a pleasant way to spend a month, then three, and now and again he returns with a heavy heart and leaves again with a lighter burden.
-=-=-
Melody keeps lists of all that have passed through my doors. She keeps the ledgers and accounts, tallies who has been here when and how, under what circumstances. She marks who has paid and who has not, who owes us favors, who we will not be inviting back. She makes sure we are fed and the bills are paid, and in return I give her… what, precisely? I’m not certain. She lives with me, along side of me, reminds me to eat and to come out of my garden occasionally. I’ve asked her why she stays, and she only shrugs.
-=-=-
The Garden, in some ways, tends to itself. I find I am able to travel, to escape for a bit. I travel to other Inns, meet Innkeepers. Problems arise, and I write them down in my notebooks. Sometimes I am able to solve them easily. More often, I take the notebooks home with me and answers come to me in dreams, where dream logic makes more sense sometimes than here. I try not to dwell on where the answers come from when they work, but rather accept it on faith that they do. In this way, a reputation is created.
-=-=- Vestigere -=-=-
The name means nothing to me when I read it. ‘He’s back,’ is the message with a warning. When Melody tells me the name of the guest, it still means little, although it tugs at a memory in the back of my mind. It is only when I see him, when I taste the air around him, that I know him, what he is, what he does. And only when I talk to him that I realize that he is Lost, perhaps more profoundly than he realizes. I welcome him, forgive his sins, and am privately relieved when he leaves.
I encounter him with startling regularity.
In my dreams, memories, dreams of memories, memories of dreams, I see his face. I feel his cold fingers as he grasps at me, feel how he takes what little warmth I’ve saved up in my body, takes it, takes it, takes it for his own.
And then he’s gone. Disappeared like he never existed, except that I’m back here, in the dark. I’d shiver if I could.
I run, run like the devil is on my heels. When I look back, I see nothing for a long time. I stop to catch my breath, to taste the air and I taste him. I don’t know what happens next. I wake in a dark box, the one I know is mine - it tastes like me.
-=-=- Durance -=-=-
The dark room is lit by a single sliver of light, and I reach out to it. My scales slide over the muscle, glittering in the dim light. My tongue flicks out, and I taste… heat. Fear. Rotting meat and cloying flowers.
This is wrong. This is my body, and yet not. My skin is covered in scales, my eyelids do not close. At the edge of my thoughts I can almost hear a word, a name that I know should be my own. I reach for it, but like the lit crescent, it too is just out of reach.
-=-=-
I am awakened by a hoarse and strangled scream that suddenly stops when I open my eyes. My world is dark but for a single silver line in the distance. Somehow I know on the other side of that line is something I want, something I need. It calls to me…
I taste fear and rotting meat around me, and when I stretch to reach the light, my scaled hands push into it, lifting the lid off my box. I stand in the silver light, unable to comprehend what is happening. A word floats into my head, and for once when I grasp after it, I touch it, take possession of it. The word is a name, and I recognize it as mine. Tanis.
-=-=- Interlude -=-=-
I remember things, sometimes: sitting indoors on overstuffed leather chairs, smooth under my fingertips, the smell of books. There are people here, lots of people. We whisper to each other, laughing and giggling, hushing each other when our giggles grow too loud, resulting in another round of helpless laughter.
My memories are bright things, light birds or butterflies - beautiful to watch, but fleeting, fluttering away on cool, autumn winds. Sometimes I want to chase after them, but another part stops me. Memories are more like butterflies after all - far more beautiful when glimpsed from afar, rather than crucified under glass.
-=-=-
I don’t think I am supposed to be covered in scales.
I look around, see others. Some are smoothly pink, look completely human. Others look like they have more than a little wolf or dog in them. A boy looks like he’s half dragon.
My scales are beautiful, green and gold, cool to the touch. The backs of my hands, my arms, reaching across my back. My neck, too, bears scales, which fade into my jaw. Light scales dapple across my brow, down my legs. I’m beautiful, I realize, even as my tongue finds its way out of my mouth, delicately forked.
-=-=- Durance -=-=-
She is the one who brought me to my garden. He is the one who took me from it. I alternately bless and curse them both when I can remember at all.
-=-=-
The garden where I live is beautiful. The high walls create a circle, and in the middle of it is a huge, sprawling apple tree. Eight paths lead radially from the tree, intersecting at the base, dividing the garden into parts, each a different theme.
I tend the garden. Because I do my duty well, I rarely see Her. For a long time, I am content. I sleep coiled around the trunk, enjoy the warm sun, make myself scarce when She entertains.
She only showed me once, and then I was taken to a dark room. I miss my garden.
-=-=- Vestigere -=-=-
I slither on my belly like the serpent I am called: I remember my name, and with that, I remember I’m not really a serpent. I stand erect, wondering how I got here.
Tanis.
The name floats into my view again, at once clear in my mind and hidden by the brambles. I turn, try to get my bearings. An ogre looms over me, pale and ugly, hair full of twigs.
I momentarily forget my name, wonder again how I got here.
“Tanis,” it calls me, voice a harsh whisper.
How ironic that the creature come to take me back gives me the key home.
“Tanis,” I repeat. A name, one that is my own. “Tanis,” I say again, giving voice to the only thing I can own.
The darkling takes me by the throat, but for the first time in… oh, ages, I’m not afraid. I am both serpent and not, and my creator gave me fangs. I twist in his grasp, willingly wrapping myself around his arm, snaking myself around his body. His grasp loosens a touch, and I constrict, sinking my fangs into his flesh as I do so. He staggers, rages, but I’m quicker than he is, quicker now that he has been poisoned. I fall to the ground, slither through the thorns, listen to his raging grow weaker. Flush with victory, I barely feel the Hedge as it, too, does its part to keep me from my escape.
-=-=- Cavanaugh’s -=-=-
They talk to me here, always talking. Voices float through my mind. On good days, I remember the faces they belong to. The rest... I find it difficult to remember names, or times, or when I’m supposed to come inside to eat. In a perfect world, I would eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired. They tell me that structure is important, that this is how it is on this side of the Hedge. People keep timetables, make appointments, watch clocks and pots and televisions. I watch people, instead, and learn more of them than they think me capable.
-=-=-
This is an easy place to be. They care for me, tell me polite and pretty things. They let me play in the gardens like I did when I was first taken. I would spend forever in the gardens if I could, but eventually it grows cold. I remember seasons, and for the first time, the concept of time takes shape in my head. Time suddenly has form, something tangible that I can touch and see.
I still can’t make appointments to save my life.
-=-=- Eli -=-=-
It irritates him that I can’t remember his name. I try and I try, but as soon as I think I have it, it eludes me again. I like him, though. Some of the people here are loud, or they make sudden movements that scare me. He moves softly around me, speaks in a kind voice, even when I can’t remember his name. He gives me small gifts, bits of chocolate, seedlings found just inside the Hedge. I eat the candy, plant the flowers and trees. I remember my manners and thank him, give him the bounty I grow. We sit together in the garden and sometimes he talks and sometimes I talk. I learn the meaning of the word ‘friend’.
-=-=-
He helps me, my friend. As time goes on, as seasons pass, I learn more. I can follow a trail at the lightly wooded edge of the property. I remember more of herblore than I do of names, but I can also make a cup of coffee, cook for myself, follow directions. I write everything into little books, and the act of writing helps me to remember. I find joy in my existence, in his existence. I learn to accept and understand abstractions, those things that can’t be touched but deeply felt, nonetheless. Eventually, I remember his name as he accompanies me across the country as I follow shreds of memory. Eli. He is as haunted by his past as I am unfettered by mine. I take the lesson given to me: the past is just so. Our future is ahead. I can only affect change in the things around me.
I discover joy.
-=-=- The Mild Garden -=-=-
The halfway house has a garden, overgrown and neglected. I take care of it, gently coaxing it back to life, bringing order to the chaos in exchange for room and board. The ever-changing boarders usually ignore me. Sometimes a chatty one will talk to me while I kneel, pulling weeds. They tell me things, sometimes terrible things, as if by telling me they will find absolution. I nod, let them ramble. Some leave the house soon afterwards, their bodies are found later. Some are so surprised when I speak back, that they fall backwards on the walk and I laugh.
-=-=-
There is a constant stream of people that come through here; police bring them, sometimes they wander in by themselves. The old woman who cared for the house grows older and weaker. I care for her, keep her company, tend to the house, its garden, its people. Another woman cares for me, and somehow, we manage. The old woman dies, as people do, and I feel a sharp pang in my gut, below my heart, above my stomach. The woman who cares for me calls it regret, isn’t phased by my questions. I’ll keep her as long as she’ll stay.
-=-=- Innkeeping -=-=-
It is a warm night, the heat from the day still radiating from the ground. I lie flat against it, luxuriating in the warmth. For the moment, the tools of my gardening lie to the side while I revel.
Crash.
I look up as a frightened man comes bursting through the brush that marks the Hedge. He spots me, turns to run, and falls to his knees, unable to continue.
I take him in, to my home, the shelter it’s become. The women watch with terrified eyes as I dress his wounds, giving over my own bed for his comfort.
-=-=-
I return to Cavanaugh’s, briefly, unsure of why I go or with what purpose. The grounds haven’t changed at all and for a time I sit under a chestnut tree like I used to. When old Cavanaugh finds me, I ask questions, use my notebooks to tell him of the things I’ve done, what I’ve accomplished. I imagine that this is how a child feels when she tells her father what she’s done. He smiles kindly, tells me of the Innkeepers over a cup of tea. When I return to California, I have a purpose, well-defined and awesome in scope.
-=-=-
A man stands at the gate to the front garden where I replant my seedlings. I can taste rich earth and warm air, and forget for a moment that he is still standing there. He is sad and angry, vacillating between those two extremes. I babble about my plants and put him at ease, more by accident than anything. After a time, he talks. We drink my tea and I teach him. It is a pleasant way to spend a month, then three, and now and again he returns with a heavy heart and leaves again with a lighter burden.
-=-=-
Melody keeps lists of all that have passed through my doors. She keeps the ledgers and accounts, tallies who has been here when and how, under what circumstances. She marks who has paid and who has not, who owes us favors, who we will not be inviting back. She makes sure we are fed and the bills are paid, and in return I give her… what, precisely? I’m not certain. She lives with me, along side of me, reminds me to eat and to come out of my garden occasionally. I’ve asked her why she stays, and she only shrugs.
-=-=-
The Garden, in some ways, tends to itself. I find I am able to travel, to escape for a bit. I travel to other Inns, meet Innkeepers. Problems arise, and I write them down in my notebooks. Sometimes I am able to solve them easily. More often, I take the notebooks home with me and answers come to me in dreams, where dream logic makes more sense sometimes than here. I try not to dwell on where the answers come from when they work, but rather accept it on faith that they do. In this way, a reputation is created.
-=-=- Vestigere -=-=-
The name means nothing to me when I read it. ‘He’s back,’ is the message with a warning. When Melody tells me the name of the guest, it still means little, although it tugs at a memory in the back of my mind. It is only when I see him, when I taste the air around him, that I know him, what he is, what he does. And only when I talk to him that I realize that he is Lost, perhaps more profoundly than he realizes. I welcome him, forgive his sins, and am privately relieved when he leaves.