I’ve never been on this plain before. Grasses and the most gentle of rolling hills for as far as the eye can see. Far behind me is a mountain range, but I know it is too far to be anymore than eye candy.
The grass is more brown than green and not many flowers remain. This is not cause for alarm. The seasons are changing. Seeds, seed pods, and the remnants of munched seeds are everywhere. It is early winter. I can smell the snow on the wind, but it is still too warm. If the precipitation leaves the mountains and comes this way, it will fall as rain.
Some would find it drab, these prairie lands. I find them a welcome change from the crags and the rocks that I usually find myself. I just don’t know why I’m here. These lands are not empty. I don’t walk a physical location. I know I am watched, but not by hostile eyes.
I should probably announce myself. Formally, that is.
In a bit.
This land is beautiful.
Why do you think so?
I’m not surprised to hear the question. I knew I wasn’t alone. I found it hard to verbalize the answer. It is not scarred by human hands, but I only see the surface of it. There could have been a settlement here and the land spirits reclaimed the area. There was a rightness to it. Things were how they were supposed to be. The grasses and flowering plants had grown in their season, flowered in their season, pollinated in their season, and gone to seed in their season. The small animals that fed on them have eaten well. Even though the snows were threatening to fall any day, there was still plenty of available seeds that had not been chewed on or squirreled away. I could see the predators had eaten well also. Remnants of a small mammal was covered in ants. I was able to see the body had been ripped apart by something small. A kestrel, I wonder.
“Because it is, as it is.” Where my words were deficient, I allowed my heart to overflow, and hoped it could convey my meaning enough.
Yes. It is. I felt something large and ridged with multiple points press gently into my back. Don’t turn around. You are not ready to see me. Even though you are already cheating by moving your Sight.
It hid easily from my Sight. And I was cheating. I didn’t turn around, but I did move my perspective so I was looking forward, from behind me. All it allowed me to see was what the points were that were pressing into my back. Between tactile sensation and the faintest of visual clues, I was able to rule out many an otherworld creature as the speaker. Of the ones that remained as possibilities, there was a risk of injury should I look unaware.
I didn’t feel like finding out what it was like to be struck stone-dumb.
Some chances are not worth the risk.
I stopped cheating.
I heard a great whoosh of air behind me. The wind that blew was snow cold at first. I wrapped my cloak tighter around me. The wind was suddenly blocked and I felt a source of warmth.
“Thank you.”
You’re welcome. The points withdrew but I remained facing forward. This land reminds you of some other place.
It does. I’ve driven through, and have been driven through, nearly flat grasslands such as this. But those have all been scarred by progress. This place, wasn’t. I’ve been here before. In person. I just don’t remember when. A deep longing began to ache. I looked down at my feet lest the ache drove tears to the surface.
You are older than you think. There is much you have forgotten. But that is not why you are here.
In habit I moved my face to look over my shoulder. But as I did, I remembered the warning and closed my eyes before the gesture finished. I could feel it smiling at my teasing smirk. We both chuckled.
“So, then, O Wise and Ancient One. Why am I here? Was not my intention to intrude. Last I remember, I was within my lair.”
You can not intrude where you were invited. You’ve withdrawn. You worry about burdening others. You’ve changed suddenly and unpredictably, and you are concerned you will harm others. The ridges press gently into my back again, reminding me of what could be behind me. You can’t harm me. Talk.
Again I threw a blinded gesture over my shoulder. Pouting offense and deep suspicion. In response, the ridges pushed in teasing play. I looked back over the landscape again, but said nothing. I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve woven a cage of abiding shadows around me, trying to present a peaceful face to others.
Speaking of cages… I feel something like scales wrap around my torso. A sharp talon, longer than a dagger, taps my chest, just below the collarbone. I cry in sudden pain. The talon did not tap enough to pierce the skin, it barely touched enough to move a hair. The skin it touched so precisely, is still so raw and bruised, the movement of air against it would cause pain. Start with what caused this, and tell me why you are exchanging one prison, for another.
Dammit.
Fucking dammit.
I didn’t…
not…
too much…
… memories …
I…
…
help
*
.
.
*
Huh?
I rub my eyes and curl into a tighter ball. The temperature had dropped greatly. I could taste the impatient snow in the air. Wait. What am I lying on? Compacted scrub. Something large and heavy was here, larger and heavier than even my waking form. That’s right. The grasslands. But I’m curled up against something warm. My cloak is wrapped tight around me, so what…
Oh. Armored hide.
Something shifts above me and I look up in reflex.
“My, what big eyes you have.” Its chuckles sounded like thunder. Amplified all the more since I’m lying against its torso. “I thought you said…”
You assume the worst, and would have harmed yourself. I scrunched up my face in silent response. Tears I could not hold back flowed freely.
I remembered.
I remembered everything.
“I’ll always have a handler, won’t I. I’ll never be free. The very attributes that keep me safe in my travels, that allows me to wander, keep me broken. This is a cruelty more than what anyone else has ever beaten me with. To know what I could have been, and know I will never attain it.”
Is that how you see yourself? Would you rather be treated as if you were whole?
“He calls me ‘Girl’, I thought because of the cultural lens I view him through. He calls me ‘Girl’, because I am. Still.”
You are still wounded. And seeing yourself through the eyes of those that would own you. And to him, to me, you are but a hatchling. You’re older than you think, but still younger than us.
Perspective. You must learn how to grasp it.
To those that would enslave you, you will ever be a child in need of guardianship. They will never treat you as an equal. They must reinforce their lies to themselves, and that means they must deny your independence at all costs. Even to their detriment.
To those that fear you, you will ever be a mockery and a byword. They must soothe themselves and the fear that guts them. To acknowledge you have an advantage over them is to deny themselves.
This is what you have left behind.
You were never made for cages. The only leash that can bind you are the ones of your making.
And what you make, you can break.
I said nothing. I was not able to accept its words. Only record them. It sat in silence with me, then asked about other things and other people in my life. We talked. I asked about aspects.
You are Raven. And Snake. And [redacted]. And [also redacted]. And a few others that you are not ready to face yet.
“I accept [redacted], but not [also redacted]. That’s wishful thinking and Fluff 101.”
That’s what you said about Raven.
I dared to give stink-eye. “I still say bullshit. If I was, then [Redacted Person] would have picked up on it.”
It laughed. Deep rumbles that felt like an earthquake rippled under me. Do I have to remind you how [That Bastard] gripped you? If it was ‘bullshit’, then how did he grab hold so securely? Those that would own you, must first strip you of what they can’t seize for themselves.
You are more than you know, Weaver Many-Names. But you won’t find yourself in any book or written lore. And you won’t be led to the places you are by anyone else but yourself. Find yourself, [Redacted]. Make yourself whole.
And as for [Redacted Person], the strength of kir self-delusion is enough to form what ke wanted to see, and project it so that you saw as well. But [Redacted Person] is not your concern, any more.
I said nothing further, my morose self-pity had fled again. I knew what I had to do for myself, but I have no idea how to do it. So instead, I remained covered and curled against the warm armored hide. Together, we watched the first snowfall on the grasslands.
I don’t know when I fell into deeper sleep. Just before the depths wrapped me completely, I heard…
“Thank you.”
My pleasure.
“She wasn’t trouble, was she?”
She has many sharp edges, but none of them harmed me.
“I don’t know what to do. She doesn’t trust me.”
She doesn’t trust herself. And she does trust you.
“How can you be sure?”
She’s listening to us now, and not attacking in anger at being manipulated again.
“… What?”
I chuckled and allowed myself to slip away. I understand sometimes you have to do the things you don’t want to do, in order to achieve the things you do. Besides, I recognized the voice. I do trust her.
I just don’t recognize what I’m turning into.
And I’m afraid.