Having another picnic along the banks of the River. Having an argument with [redacted] about which tarot card represents me and why. (Sorry. No. I don’t care if Crowley’s method avoids my nasty cusp business, birth date alone does not a soul chisel. And then there’s the astrological assignments to the cards which are constrained by the cusp problem, and which I will gladly blow out of the water when applying to me, because depending on which mood and mindset I’m in, I change.)
“It’s you!”
Oh shit. My conversant and I look up towards the source of the sound. A woman’s voice, full of youth and awe. Her voice was very familiar. Too familiar. I counted my mental shards to see which one had snuck out when I wasn’t looking, but they were all accounted for.
My conversant had to turn kir head and hide behind my back to keep the snickers from being seen by my younger self. I wanted to crawl under the River’s bank from embarrassment. Was this what I was like when I first started out on this unnamed path of mine? Yes, yes it was. Forgive me.
God fucking dammit, I was so fluffy, I could be used as a measurement reference for pillow softness. Just as well. My head was just as empty.
“I found you again.”, she exclaimed. No scars on her. They weren’t uncovered yet. No gear except for what she had conjured up according to the book she just read. No satchel, no boots, no cloak, no Embroidered Man’s coat, no [certain rod], no markings, no sword. Just her naivete about how to protect herself, and her inherent skills that she didn’t even know she had but kept her off many a predator’s radar just the same. Her skills that would terrify her because according to the book she just read, those skills were the mark of monsters. “I made it off the mountain.” No, don’t call me… “Shamanka.”
My conversant screamed kir laughter into a hollow in the ground and quickly covered up the hole so the sound wouldn’t escape. I grimaced that half smile, half threat that comes when one realizes one’s fly is down in public. I ransacked my memory, trying to recall if I had found my future self in the past. Ravenwoman dominated those thoughts, but I did remember moments where I had either met my past self, or my future self. This could be a thing.
With heavy voice and barely concealed threat, I responded. “I’m no shamanka.”
She blinked in confusion. “But… you’re… me. And you have… things like…”
“I’m no shamanka. And that book you are reading, is wrong on so many levels. It is a different kind of slavery than the one you just escaped. The things I have, are the things you have. But that book you are reading will tell you otherwise, because the point of that book isn’t to empower you. It is to sucker you into a stiff and whitewashed artificial culture. But I know where you are, and I know when you are. You’ll see what I mean first hand very soon. But don’t call me… call yourself… a shamanka ever again. That word does not mean what you think it does.”
She realized I and my conversant were still sitting while she was still standing. She quickly sat on her heels in a stiff position to show respect. My conversant crawled into my shadow to continue chuckling without disturbing my younger self. “I… don’t understand. The white crows…”
“The three white crows teased you about becoming a shaman, because at that time, that was the only word you knew, and the only cultural reference you would understand. Do not hang on the words and the symbols you are seeing. Your language will expand. Your cultural references will increase. You will find the things you learned at first are bullshit, and when you start trusting yourself, you will bloom.” I realized she was staring at my dead eye. I thought about all that has happened between her moment and mine. I smiled warmly. “You will die. Often. You will be undone and remade. Often. You will find allies in the darkest of places, and you will see the brightest mouths are the hungriest. You will question your past, your sanity, and your knowledge. Often. And by the time you catch up to where I am now, you’ll still feel like a fucking noob running around with elite gear that you wonder how the hell did you get because you sure as hell still don’t know what you are doing.”
Her face fell. “Then… why am I doing this? If everything I think I know is a lie, and I don’t get anywhere, why am I doing this?”
That’s a question I ask myself still. “Because like hell will you let [my molester] win. Because J is increasing in strength and filling your head with horrible, horrible thoughts again. Because you will remember that you are Rebellion and that the angels did their best to break you and you have to find out why. Because [there is a trend you keep noticing], time and time again, and that demands an answer. And there’s only one way to get it if you’re going to get it in this life. And besides, why the fuck not? Your head is broken and open. Why not take advantage of it and have fun along the way?”
She studied my fire ravaged hand, the scar permanently black from the soot of my flesh being embedded in what layers were left over my arm. She studied my left hand and arm, and the confusing patterns of tattoos that sleeved it from fingers to shoulder. She saw the snake tattoo around my neck and recoiled in horror. (I could not hold my laughter at that. I knew why she was terrified of it.) “If I’m not a shamanka… what am I?”
Unmaker. Black Wolf. Black Jack. Shambling. Trollkona. Thrice Carved Elm. Ravenwoman. Boneburner. She Rattles Bones. Shadowwalker. Courier. Archer. She Goes Between. Weaver. “Oh no. I’m not giving you that on a silver platter. You’re just going to have to figure that out as you go along. That’s the most important question you can ask. Don’t settle for a trite bullshit answer using someone else’s prejudices. What are you? Whatever you need to be at the moment. Don’t limit yourself, [Keri]. You have only begun. Don’t only look at the ground because you don’t have wings. You never know when you’re going to fly.”
My younger self nodded in an empty gesture of receiving the words but not the understanding. As the gesture was ending, a sudden lethargy overcame her and she almost fell forward. She struggled against it and fell backwards instead. The River suddenly surged as if in flood, the waters overcoming the bank and streaming towards us. The River embraced my younger self and pulled her back into the flow. She tried to free herself, but the River is strong and she was ignorant of her strength.
My conversant left my shadow and together we watched the River sweep my younger self back into her proper time. “Was the book that problematic?”
“That book declared that any and all reptilian spirits were counterproductive to the welfare of humanity and could not be trusted. Indeed, they were to be repulsed at minimum and banished as a rule.”
“Seriously?” Ke leaned forward to look me square in the face. “All reptilian spirits?”
I laughed. “Yea. Especially snakes and crocodiles. Oh, and alligators, but the book had special hate, er, warnings about snakes and crocodiles.”
“So… when you met [a certain person]…”
“You have no idea how much of a mindfuck it was to see [that person] that way. Fortunately, by then I had mostly purged the bullshit. After all, I had Snake by then, and had been in the Nagalands before him. But, yea, cognitive dissonance is a bitch. That book did a lot of damage that I’m still unraveling now. It’s where I got the shamanka bullshit from. Core shamanism my ass.” I furrowed my brow in anger. “If I dwell on it more, I’m going to get myself riled up. She’s back in the past, and all that is waiting between then and now. I can’t change that.” I looked at the tarot cards still spread out on the dry sand. “Where were we?”
Ke lifted a card from the scattered mess and studied it. “I heard the names you wouldn’t speak to her. I know which card you are.” Ke turned it around to show me the card’s face. I glowered darkly on seeing the choice. Ke smiled brightly.
“Bullshit.” I pushed the card away. “I don’t have the responsibility nor the maturity to be that. Besides, that card is mutable as fuck. Whatever card follows it, colors it.”
“Precisely. That’s why it fits you.”
I felt dawn approaching in the physical world. Standing, I announced, “We’ll have this argument later.”. Ke chuckled warmly as ke gathered up kir cards.
I flipped kir off as a friendly farewell. With kir laughter as escort, I entered the River and returned to the Waking World.