July 1st, 2015.
He'd lost track of the times he'd walked this route, barefoot beneath the trees and with the wolves' voices a chorus on crisp night air. He'd only ever visited past dusk, avoidant of the others he knew made regular visits to the forest's heart, loath to risk providing them opportunity to interrogate him. What was done was done, and he'd kept his promise, no matter how distasteful the task. This day however, he arrived with the sun bold and brilliant overhead, light dancing dappled through summer leaves, the collar of his shirt sweat damp and his tawny face set stern, eyes studiously fixated on what lay ahead, trees in his path or not.
When he reached the Heart, he stopped just outside the ring of totems, breathing in the life force of the place which seemed to throb under the shelter of the overgrown goliath of a tree with its wide sprawling roots and vast canopy. The place he expected to see marred by a yawning pit was undisturbed, the ground grown over and the baby's breath blossoms profuse, the delicate pink of a shell's inner coils. He couldn't even see any signs of subsidence, and all of it, everything left his frown cutting deeper. Finally, he stepped over the threshold, silent as a cat on velvet paws as he had each time, and after a moment, he settled in the kinked angle of one bulging root, letting the gnarled wood cradle his back as if even here, he couldn't bear to be comfortable.
She knew her Prickly Bear was moving about. She was walking barefooted through the forest, quiet and light. The butterfly wings on her back fluttered with energy, but she was not able to fly. No, the wings were not strong to carry her. In fact, she looked positively delicate herself. A fragile, porcelain doll. She was not a child, but she was not the woman she had been before she went to ground. She was younger, fresher and probably more pure than she had been when she went to nest in her life-riched soil.
She crept up to the burial site with the great tree and her splendor. She sat at the undisturbed grave and dug her bare toes into the soil as if she were planting a stem into the ground so a flower could grow roots and thrive. Her gaze lingered on Mesteno the entire time, but she did not say a word to him or make a sound. The Prickly Bear and the fragile butterfly doll.
He'd known she'd come. Perhaps it was the reason he'd chosen to visit during the daylight hours, as if she belonged to them rather than the nocturnal lull. As disparate as two people could be, and this only became more obvious as he observed her approach, forced himself to see... She looked as if a touch too heavy might shatter her. Strong as the earth here was, he did not think her yet fully healed, and the vulnerability, the prey animal qualities, it deepened his concern. Had he made the right choice? He stirred as she buried her toes, like a child dabbling in the surf, and in doing so he was half lost to the shade of the canopy.
"What would I find if I put a shovel in the ground and set to digging?" he asked her. "Is there any part of you left down there? Do you even know what I'm talking about?" He imagined bringing up crumbling bones, and watching them turn to dust in his palms, morbid images he couldn't set aside.
She blinked then blinked again as she dug her toes in deeper. Maybe she's planting her feet into the ground. "We have been there a long time." She looked to the dirt where they had once left her. The place where her split selves had also left her once before. "There are parts of us everywhere."
It was the way of RhyDin women to talk in tongues, and he'd never been particularly successful in following the rambling routes of their minds. His focus skipped away from her, and up into the branches as if he might find the answers there instead. Perhaps she was up there, too, in every twig and leaf. Perhaps his ignorance was laughable to her, and she was only being patient.
"Taneth, when we were at the inn, and you appeared, you told Crispin and I the last thing you could recall was when we visited you. But there was a time after that. A time you were out in the garden, and you took out the knife, and you bled for Glory." And where was Glory now? Perhaps she was hidden somewhere, listening. "Do you remember that? Do you remember me being there with you at all?" His eyes found hers again, one the predictable wolf's gold, the other so shadowed it gleamed nocturnal-bright.
Her delicately pinkish lips turned into a frown. "No. My Morning Glory has always been with me. Since she was a baby. Since they were all made back into the seeds and I made the garden to help them all grow again. Just like me." She wiggled her toes in the dirt and sunk her feet in more to just above the ankle. "We did not use any blades for such a long time."
"Do you remember-- do you remember anything about what you asked us to do for you?" He was growing more alarmed by her seeming amnesia by the moment, but the tells of it were discreet, only there in his struggle for words and the quiet vehemence of his voice. "The parts of you which you said weren't good, the ones you were afraid were going to hurt people, do you remember struggling to keep them in check?"
Her head tick-tocked from side to side as if she was listening to a little tune. "No. I remember we had tea. We ought to have tea again. Morning Glory makes cookies."
He laughed, but it was a grating sound, unhinged, and he sank back against the cradling root, slack limbed and wry-smiling. "There are things I want to tell you," he confessed after what likely felt a prolonged silence. "But I think you may not believe me. I also think perhaps it might be kinder if you didn't know."
Pure, yes he felt that from her. Why should he sully it with memories of foul things? Let her girlish mind recall what it wished and think better of him than she should have. Only it felt dishonest, to say nothing. "How are you?" he asked her, setting aside his personal concerns, at least for the moment. "You're not unhappy?"
A shrug of too thin shoulders and a flutter of restless butterfly wings. "I do not know." She dropped her elbows to her knees and cupped her cheeks in the palms of her hands. She was so young. This flower bloomed too soon. "I do not feel anything."
Worse and worse. Had they run the sword through the girl's stomach and put her in the ground only to receive a remnant in return? She seemed an empty shell, some echo of the Taneth he'd known, as if all the brightness and warmth had been as thoroughly eradicated as the things she'd feared would grip her permanently.
"Something is missing," he told her flatly. "Something more than memories of what happened after we visited you. The 'others'... it's as if you left them all in the ground, girl."
She looked up at him with a blink. "So you feel them down there too?" Her legs moved, but her feet stayed planted in the grave. Maybe her plan had been to leave all that she knew about herself behind when she awoke or maybe she simply did not have time to grow the roots that would leave her knowing who she was and is in this life. "Do you touch them with your toes too?"
Progress, and not when he'd expected it either. His lips parted as if he might blurt the first thing which came springing to his tongue, but he hesitated, watching her side-long, and following her legs to the point where her toes vanished into the dirt. Yes, precisely like a plant trying to take root.
"You came up too early, Taneth," was what he told her quietly. "I can't feel them. I almost wish I could, t'know they were all right. They should come back up to be with you, to fill in the gaps and make you feel the things you're not, to make you stronger." The fragility made sense now, and he was struck with a need to find the way to put things right. He'd have conferred with Crispin had he been there, but the nephilim was who-knew-where... "What do you feel from them now?" he asked, gesturing to her feet.
"Nothing. Morning Glory said we might have put them too deep." The ?we? might have been Morning Glory and Taneth or just Taneth. It's difficult to tell. "But the ground is warm and tickles my toes." Oh, she was indeed fragile. She was also highly vulnerable and breakable.
"I think I need to talk to Glory," he confessed, wondering whether the girl Taneth had bled to bring back had made the same attempts as he to restore her memories. The simple truth was, Mesteno was terrible at rectifying things like this, and had learned through experience not to simply try and fix things alone. Better to have the voice of experience at his ear. A palm to the root, he rose, the predictable click and crunch from his knees, and barefoot he strode across the grass of the Heart's grounds, making for the edge of the totem circle only to stop before he passed beyond it.
"Taneth, did Crispin say anything to you? Anything which helped?" Because he didn't want to undo any of the nephilim's work.
"I do not remember," she said simply as she gazes up to Mesteno. "Morning Glory is not here. I sent her to go make friends."
He found it odd that Glory would comply with Taneth so plainly vulnerable, but if the enigmatic little blonde wasn't roaming beyond the borders of her cottage and the forest she'd created, she was likely safe. Hopefully. Lips pursed, he turned back towards the winged Gardener, the narrowing of his shrewd eyes more a result of introspection than any malaise. "Will she return here later, do you think?"
"Of course. She lives here." Taneth nodded. "She has a room and everything. Why?" She narrowed her eyes back at Mesteno. "Do you like Morning Glory more than me?"
Perhaps Taneth wasn't entirely without some of her feelings after all. Was she upset? Jealous? The narrowed eyes suggested something beyond indifference. Thankfully, he was in no mood to toy with her, despite his usually deviant inclinations. "I barely know the girl," he told her bluntly. "She seems like a good sort, the kind of person I think would be a good friend to you, and she answered my questions while you were gone, but no. I don't prefer her, if you must know." His eyes remained fixed on her, as if he hoped his words might have inspired some emotion beyond apathy.
"We are friends. You and me. Us." She reached out her hand to him. "Why do you move about?"
"Yes, we are," he agreed. "But things are a great deal more complicated than you know." Since Glory wasn't in the immediate vicinity to chase down and put to question, he moved back towards Taneth, but he did so with deliberate caution. To be too near her made him uneasy, as if he thought his rough edges and indelicate ways might cause her some harm. He stopped beyond her reach, though he was closer than he'd been before, dropping to a crouch with his weight balanced lightly on the balls of his feet, knees in a butterfly splay and elbows tucked to thighs.
"I'm friends with a Taneth who was made up of all of them. All of her good aspects, and all of those which troubled her. I want them to come back, and I want her to be whole, for you and her to be one and mended. Do you understand that?" His eyebrows rose a fraction above the fierce gold of his eyes. "Do you want it too?"
"But I am Taneth." Confusion knitted her eyebrows together. "How can there be a me and a her?"
It was like attempting to explain it to a child. In fact given her rebirth, it was probably precisely like that. His sigh was a faint thing, and not impatient. "Do you remember a time when you felt a great deal of things? Things like being happy, contentment, love. You remember being pleased when Cris and I came to visit you? How you were amused when he was stuck outside with the rabbits half the time? Those parts of you, they need to come back so you don't feel 'nothing'."
"I remember feeling good when we were together." Memories. She felt those memories at least. "But if I was supposed to feel a great deal of things then why did those feelings not all come with me here?" So young. So soon.
His snort wasn't derisive. It was self-aimed admonition for not expecting he'd have to find a way to answer these questions. "I wish I knew the answer to that," he told her, sinking back to rock first onto his heels, and then straight onto his ass, knees angled towards the sky and his palms flat to the grass. "I can make guesses, but they're probably wrong." But guess he would anyway. "Perhaps the feelings tried but weren't rested enough yet. Or perhaps there's some way they're all tangling back together and that has to happen before they can rise. Could just be that you're here because Cris 'n I kept sayin' how we thought you'd been down there too long and so what could came up to keep us from whining so much, you know?"
Whining was probably an incorrect term. Crispin didn't seem like the sort to resort to that, and Mesteno's own groused comments certainly hadn't been pleading, only impatient. "There are others who might know better, y'know? You remember Benjamin and Jack? They're probably your best friends or something. I bet they could give you some insight that isn't just guesses."
"They are mad at me." She isn't forlorn about Jack and Benji being mad at her. She's just accepting of such a fate. "You do not seem mad anymore." She observes him and eventually leans back to almost mirror his sitting, except her feet are still being warmed by the patch of soil she has buried them in. "Why do you not know? You are smart and I know you read books."
"Only because they're concerned for you. I'll bet both of 'em came here, just like I did. Y'know, to visit." He didn't know either man particularly well, and he was fairly sure Jack was harbouring some animosity towards him, but he was smart enough to understand why. "I wasn't mad," he told her, and perhaps that stilted movement was supposed to be a shrug. "I was confused, and things weren't turning out the way I expected. I understand why now, though. And it's not to bad f'that reason, especially if I can help." Just not the kind of help he'd offered last time!
Her insinuation that he was smart actually left him smiling, a scalpel sharp expression that suggested she'd said something cute, but potentially inaccurate. "Because the things I read about haven't got anything to do with this, Blondie. I'm trying to figure it out as I go along."
"What have you figured out so far?" Dips her chin down. Quiet.
"I figured out that just because you don't remember things now, doesn't mean that you might not in the future. And that perhaps your loss of memory is simply 'cause you woke up too early. We'll take it a step at a time and see if we can get you back to feeling things like you're supposed to. And if that means I have to talk to folks who don't like me much, it doesn't matter."
"If they do not like you then you should not have to talk to them." Nodding. "But I like you. I know I do."
"Well they have reason to be mad at me. Probably the way you think they have to be mad at you," though he'd argue until his last breath that the choice was, and always had been hers.
"So do not worry about them if they are mad at you. That can make one sad." So one should obviously avoid what pains them.
"I'm not worried," he admitted, and truly he didn't sound it in the least. "I don't care if people are mad. Ben, I think he was more upset than mad anyway. Seems like a good sort. Jack I don't know real well beyond he's with Gem, and f'that reason I don't intend to get into anything with him. He'll help if he cares for you though." And he was certain the fae did.
"What does it mean to care?" She lays her back on the ground and places her palms on her tummy.
"You'll find out when everything is fixed," he told her simply. It was too intricate a thing for him to attempt to explain. "For now, try and stay here as much as you can. It's dangerous outside of this place, and you're not as strong as you need to be to face it." He suspected she might wander out despite his warning, but what was he going to do... tie her to the tree?
"Why must we wait to know? Can you not tell us?" Her feet still have not left the warmth of the earth. "And if I stay here then how will I see people?"
"I'm not good at explaining things. You can only really understand caring by experiencing it." It appeared he intended not to relent on the explanation. "I guess it'd be safe to go out if you had Glory with you, or Crispin," he admitted reluctantly though.
"What about you? And why is it not safe?" So many questions.
"Because you look fit to snap in two if the wind blows too strong," he told her, tactless as ever. "And I'm not often around to play escort. I go bad places, and hang around with bad people, and there's no guarantee once I'm out there, I'll be able to stick around and see you home safe." All truths, unfortunately.
"Does that mean I am bad people? You are with me." Turns her head so she can see him. The truths didn't hurt, not yet.
He shook his head, the bloody river of his hair sliding back and forth across the grass between the arms he propped himself with. "No. Some folks I know are real good, and you're one of 'em." Even if she'd tried to stab him, or use her powers to do God only knew what. She might not be human, but she'd once upon a time harboured the same emotions, and didn't everyone get a little stabby from time to time?
"How do you know I am good?" She touched a hand where her heart should be. "Can one feel it?"
"'Cause I've known bad people." Because he was bad people, more often than otherwise. "You'll just have to trust me," he told her, and for the second time that afternoon, he was pushing himself back to his feet. "I need to go, Taneth, but thank you for answering my questions." Even if the answers hadn't been anything like he'd expected.
"Okay. I will miss you." It seemed to be the most appropriate thing for her to say. Maybe an autopilot feeling.
He suspected as much. Perhaps that was why the smile he offered her was such a brief lived thing, and why when he turned away to leave, prowling off through the trees towards the cottage where his van was parked, his expression was one of distinctly gritty determination. Hunt down Glory. Hunt down Jack. Hunt down Crispin too. Lucky RhyDinites.
Taneth stayed there for a while longer, planted in her grave.