it is me, it is the next me…

[fluffmonster]

Visceral, there, torn away, thrust into somewhere, something else, it is me, it is the next me…

...bend over, pick a flower...it smells
...soaring high on a sunny day...free
...where two were one...torn apart
...stars collide…the dance of the cosmos

She roused the day well-rested. That didn't happen often, so she lingered on the pillow a bit longer. An indulgent moment later she sat up and tenderly set her feet on the floor, finding much of the footsore she was beset with the past few days to be greatly mended. She stilled for a moment, and seemed to withdraw...

...mommy, i don't like the soup...disgust
...the western front is surging forward, my lord!...relief
...break the shell, see light for the first time...life
…the waters rise, the red oak succumbs…fate

Her eyes regained focus, and she did a few deep breaths to brace for the day. It was easier waking up this time. It had been easier yesterday too. It had been easier since the mistake. Why had she looked? She could have just not looked. But everyone wanted to know so badly what the poor soul on the wrong side of the bars knew, and as soon as she thought she could get a peek she took the chance. After all, could it really be any worse than what she couldn’t look away from?

The image came forward in her thoughts again…A sun…blinding darkness…obsidian shard…and he watched it come to his heart…he watched it again…and again…each time as if the first, not knowing if it would stop before piercing his heart…but knowing…the anxiousness and inevitability…

…please give me a better way to die…Oh, bless you shorty…
…the leaf passes its tree from upstream…chaos
…sobbing, please stop, I don’t want to…fear
…lathander’s sign, drawn in blood…omen
…the lashes flay the skin; the screams bloody in the throat…pain
…a warm stickiness slides down the throat as the hunters spoon their hands below it…death
…the knife falls slow, its shadow creeping down the back of it’s victim…surprise
…mirror…flash…

Ellora snapped to attention, breathing harder. She fought to look away, cursing herself for making the same mistake twice. This is ridiculous, she thought. What is matter with you, you silly girl.

Ellora departed from the cot with a feckless determination. Today was the day. She knew it in the way one knows remembered things. A light breakfast of a piece of fruit with milk was bolted down and she went straight to a student’s practice room, her beginner’s spellbook clamped firmly under an arm. She would cast a spell today.

She found a quiet spot and opened the book. There wasn’t much point, she thought. She knew the incantations. Understanding the incantations wasn’t the problem. It was when spell and vision collided that things fell apart. The first spell she had tried to cast had simply failed. Unfortunately, she thereby held herself less guarded for the second. Professor Melindia had to intervene that time to save her mind. The rest of the attempts were somewhere in between.

She looked up at one of the mirrors hanging in the room, and stared at herself. She began the incantation and felt the magic of the spell organize into the delicate form dictated by the motions and the words of the caster. She also felt the visions rise. She embraced the spell and looked upon it in her mind’s eye as she had agreed to look upon the vision terrorizing the prisoner. Where before the visions always swept the spell aside, this time the spell became an index, a key against which she imposed order upon the visions. One grew, the vision of her casting the spell, and married with the spell itself. She smiled as she saw the flash itself, the visions dissipated with the energies of the Weave in the spell’s firing.

The sense of relief was tremendous. She went back to her cot and cast that spell as many times as she could, spending the better part of the afternoon in the process. She doubted that the visions would stop coming or be less visceral, but she could also see them from a different place now, above them, to the side of them. For the first time in a very long time, she felt she might someday be free.

Ellora laid back on her cot and let a late afternoon tiredness claim her. She went through that shadowy place between wakefulness and sleep, and they came much as they always had…

…a cheating husband…shame
…the tree adds another year’s ring…time
…blackbirds make a nest above Hornblade’s cradle…Beshaba
…the pain of birth and coldness of life’s first breath…shock
…the lidless eye closes…