In a small room at The Wicker Goat, Bolson sat writing. A stack of thin leather bound books sat to the side of the desk he was bent over. As his pen flew over the paper, leaving a neat scribe’s penmanship behind in neat lines across the otherwise blank page, he couldn’t help but glance at the bed where his traveling gear lay sprawled out. Read More »

* Note: Thought I would try my hand at a mirror-world post.  Enjoy.

Chicago, April 2008

I.
Early evening in late April, unseasonably cold.  The sky a flat metallic gray from corrosive winds blowing in from Gary, feeding the pavement below it a feeble, icy half-rain that has chased the city’s inhabitants inside their favorite haunts.  Neon signs twitch and flicker to life as the air takes on a darker set, orange and red and yellow and pink blazing cold thin fires in glass tubes.  Headlights flash from cars and buses and the occasional grim-faced bike messenger, all rushing through the gritted, dank streets, orchestrated automatons on a track.

Somewhere nearer to the clouds, the “L” grinds to a rusty halt, sparks joining the intermittent rainfall, fading before they hit the ground.  A girl, small and slight, stumbles out of the third car onto the rain-slick platform, balancing a tower of books in one arm and dangling an overstuffed satchel from the other as she darts among the myriad train passengers.  A freckled frat boy with a backwards Cubs baseball hat bumps against her with a grin and an invitational remark.  She ignores him and, shivering, clatters down the iron-grate steps to the corner of State and Van Buren, her long auburn hair tangling behind her in the wind.
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I. Last Words

Crecentia sat in her room at the manor, her fingers drumming intermittently on the desk and chair that had been built for her by the local carpenter. They were not ornate by most standards, but she adored them all the same. He had insisted on not charging her extra for the intricate leatherwork for the chair backing to give her wings a place to rest. Even when she had been persistent about paying him for the richer stain he used, or extra coat of polish (so she could see her beauty in it he said), he had accepted nothing more than her blush and a firm punch in the arm from his wife. She noticed then that there were wet spots on the parchment in front of her and after carefully drying the tears into stains, she picked up her quill and she started to write.
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Asulda Springsend sang the words to the song, her thin voice drowned out by the chorus of others gathered in her mother’s home. “Day by day we thank the Three | that here among us you still be | happy birthday, dear Mesi!”

Across the room from her sat her sister Mesi, beaming that broad, gleaming, imbecilic, beguiling smile of hers as the packed room finished singing the traditional song. Read More »

11 Uktar 1373

“Love! — A word by superstition thought a God; by use turned to an humour; by self-will made a flattering madness.” *

I cannot remember now who wrote those words, only that in the past few days they have proved truer than I imagined.  For it is all vanity, all madness, is it not?  This whole process of saying good-bye, the unsurety of whether I shall ever again pay a visit to my dear father, or partake of the wisdom and hospitality of War Wizardess Chistra, or succumb to the delicious temptations of my darling, sweet Thrain.  Never before have I felt so basely selfish, a sentiment entirely at odds with what I have learnt of love.  Love should be a selfless entity, a way of seeing others and seeing oneself that nigh makes sacrifice a necessity, a blessing.  Crecentia and Sethia seem to have it in the right — but for me, I think it is different.

I always knew in the core of my heart that I was a wicked little creature, that I had as little use for love as it had for me.  It was not a matter of deserving (or not), or needing others (or not), but rather a grim determination that I had been set apart from a realm so easily accessible to everyone else, and must remain isolated there lest I lose everything for which I had fought.  But somehow, despite my efforts to the contrary, love has crawled in and consumed me, like a sinew of smoke, or flies on a carcass, and I cannot stop it, much less cleanse myself of its stain.
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