September 2007 - All That Burns


He had not expected to get through the night unscathed, and he didn't. But by now, it was just a matter of course; he was too tired to make more of it than that.

He was shaking like a leaf when he crawled out of bed, as quietly as he could manage, and went to take a shower to try to combat the bone-deep cold that wouldn't let him go. He knew, logically speaking, that taking a hot shower was probably the last thing he should to -- his temperature was high enough, and that wouldn't do more than make it worse. But in a choice between possible seizures and being cold, he knew which he would rather face.

He hated being cold.

He rummaged through the medicine cabinet, and found some hotel-like stuff. Mercifully enough, tylenol was amongst those things; he was surprised that he hadn't actually thought to dig some up the night before.

Then he started a hot shower, still shivering, and climbed in once he shed his clothes. It felt good, wise or no.

It was Sunday; one week since the engagement party, and the world had done about a million things in that one week. He wasn't quite sure how to settle it all into his memory yet. Wasn't sure how to settle it all into his life yet.

So he sat -- not the traditional way to take a shower, but better than falling and splitting his head open -- and let his thoughts roam. To Copper Forge, months before. To March, and the rain and wind and thunder. To Ar lan y m?r--

(...come in under the shadow of this red rock...)

--and his jetski, and everything else.

He closed his eyes in the warm imitation of rain, losing himself in the sound of it for long periods, and even despite the fact that it was hot and breathing through the steam was work, the shivering went away after awhile and he didn't feel so cold anymore.

"Then don't go where I can't."

"Then tell me how to find my way back."

He still didn't know, really, the way back. Maybe because he had not known the road when he was on it, let alone when he left it. It was harder than he had thought it would be in some ways, and easier in others, to want to keep going.

"...you remind me, when you light up, of all the reasons I want to keep on breathing."

He would not have said it, if he hadn't meant it; idle words were never his suit and never would be. But he did mean it. He wondered a bit about that, too. He barely knew Maia. But he knew that he would walk to his death for her.

Looking back over his life, it didn't surprise him. Almost every deep attachment he'd ever made to anyone was nearly instantaneous. Some silent thing that clicked into place immediately; if it didn't, it never really did afterwards. Not that he had not built good friendships. But on some level, coded into his core, only certain people dwelled.

It was Sunday; one week ago, minus a few hours, they had danced around a fire in utter silliness, and laughed hard and long. Even if they hadn't fought side-by-side after that, or ever even crossed paths again, he would have loved her in some way for that alone. For laughter. For being silly with him, when he needed it.

He finally got out of the shower not long after the first light of day, though it didn't make much headway into the room with the curtains drawn, and got dressed. He was still shaky, but now it was fatigue and general post-illness weakness, and his skin had cooled to normal, and he felt like he had at least crossed the bridge towards being all right again.

He didn't want to get food just yet, but probably would later. For now, exhausted, he just crawled back into bed.

He didn't go right to sleep; instead, he looked along the pillow to where Maia slept, firmly quelling the urge to put an arm around her. In one part, he bled for her -- as bad as this week had been on her, when she had so long since earned the right to peace and a non-bloody life, it hurt in some way that he couldn't give that to her. In the other, he just admired her -- through a mirror, but more darkly. She still stood, and it gave him hope that if she could, with all she had faced, then he could find a way to himself.

For someone who had such a hard time with hope, she was good at giving it.

"Don't go where I can't follow," he thought, though he didn't say it, not wanting to disturb her sleep.

An echo, of sorts, of Archie's words to him, a lifetime ago.

He drifted off with those words spoken to him whispering in his skull, and his mental plea to her for the same twined through it. And with his thoughts and warm feelings dwelling in two places so distant from each other, he was surprised he could feel so much at home.

September 25th, 2007 - Between Wind and Water


It was late in the morning by the time Harold woke up, even enough to note where the sun was laying its light. He didn't move, though; Maia was well asleep against him, and like last night in the alley, he liked how she fit there. He didn't bother dwelling on anything deeper or more complicated than that simple fact -- she belonged there, in this moment, regardless of any before or after, and he was content with that.

So he closed his eyes again and rested. An idle rest, really, easy and unassuming. She smelled clean and it made him think a bit about that lavender tea, though there was nothing lavender about her. He could feel the sunlight even though it lay on the floor feet away; could smell it, too, a sort of... of...

He wasn't sure how to describe it; the smell of heated air, and tiny things that floated in it, making visible bands of light. It was damn warm out, by now, and they had ended up kicking their blankets off at some point in the earlier day. But the height and the shadows they were still in assured that they could at least still stand to be pressed close together.

He thought about things in a meandering way; not delving deep into them as they had the night before, diving and then scrambling for the surface when it felt like the air had run out.

He loved it up here. The Light had about a million meanings to him, and aside a few of them, all were good. It was a standing, living, working monument to the power of human recovery -- he had found it a man still broken through, and restored it as a man who had managed to put most of the pieces back into place, and came back often as a whole man finally. It was a place that he didn't have to share with anyone, if he didn't want to, because it was his. Truly his.

Which made it more fitting entirely that he shared it with Maia, now. Likewise in a million ways.

He picked his head up for a moment to press his face into her hair, briefly tightening his arms around her, though not enough probably to wake her up. The simple feeling of that thrilled him, in some likewise unassuming way. It had always been one of his more favorite things in life, either with dear friends or lovers, to just enjoy that contact. It was human, and without that humanity, he didn't think life would be all that worthwhile. It was a more recent thing he'd learned, only since Rhy'Din really, but one of the best things.

"We'll be all right," he thought, half addressing her, half himself. It struck him as terrifying and wonderful all at once that if he thought it, then she would probably know it, even if he never said it. That feeling of hope that welled up here, there, sometimes flagged, sometimes became almost invisible, flared up again.

She had a plan for sailing to the islands. It was another thing that was unsettling, not all in bad ways, that he wanted to go with her as much as he did. Not even a week ago, he had told her he wasn't ready to test his mettle against the sea again. Now, he felt equal to it. It wasn't so much that he thought she had given him his strength back... or that he didn't have it to begin with. Only that she had showed him the way, intentionally or no, to start believing in it again.

He wanted to go with her. He still wanted to go south. He had gotten a notice that Renne had escaped; so much he believed in justice, but it hadn't really surprised him in the end. If he was ever going to get to that happy and peaceful place, the place he wanted him and Maia and even Archie to go, he had to learn which battles were worth his time and heart, and which would only be raging against an inevitable ending. The deck had been stacked against justice before he even got involved. It would not take anymore of him than it had.

He wanted to go with her; to feel the sea, and feel the air, to stand on deck with his feet apart, hands behind his back, calling the orders to his watch. Of all the things he had been in his life, profession-wise, even personally perhaps, knowing the sea and the ships and sailing was the one that always fit and always would call him. He knew that it was the same for Maia. It was a perfect life in its simplicity and rigid requirement for devotion, and they were people who knew or at least longed for both.

He fell to absently brushing at her hair, along her temple, carefully. Wild hair, but beautifully colored. Maia was more made for those early morning blues she liked. Not that she didn't look pretty good in any light. But those colors did suit her best. Deep to peaking blues. Some were made for the sun, and some were made for the moon, but she was made for dawn.

"Woman, I don't know what to do with you."

It was a warm thought. Affectionate. Not pressing, not presumptuous. Just warm.

He chuckled low, deep in his chest, and settled in to nap a little while longer. Later, he would figure out if he should chase the water, or chase the wind.

Now, he would just be still.

September 26th, 2007 - Shades of Blue


They spent the day in some measure of planning. Maia went back to the brigantine, where she caught up with the crew; Harold spent most of the day outside of her company only out of necessity, trying to track down limited supplies to do some touch-up work on the Al Na'ir.

Needless to say, after the zombie invasion, supplies of any kind were hard to come by. It wasn't as though the brigantine needed much; only some good black marine paint to touch up her hull, and some cordage. Sailing ships needed constant maintenance and work no matter how short a time they had been at sea, and Harold enjoyed that work.

It took him quite a long time; he ended up having to travel all the way up to Hennings Beach and the hardware store there. Being back in the little summer town, even briefly, reminded him most strongly of Archie -- it had been a Godsend, that cottage. A place for them to go away from the city, away from the sorrows, away from everything and recover.

He stopped back at Ar lan y m?r on the way back towards the city, picking up a few more of his clothes just in case, and his peacoat in case the weather turned.

The fall was just starting to show. Right on time. A few trees shedding a few brown leaves, that blew across the road in the warm air, following the breeze wherever it went.

Half of him kept going north, back to the city. Physically, he did. The other half went south, to an estuary town that he had only seen maps of, where his best friend was now likely delighting first graders with his wonderful teaching ability. Harold admired that. Admired most things when it came to Archie; understood even the things that weren't so admirable. But being a teacher... that suited the Intrepid Mister Kennedy. It was fun to see, and Archie genuinely liked doing it.

Ahead was north, and Maia, and the Al Na'ir. A chance to sail again, on the brigantine that he had restored for just such a purpose. A chance to keep getting to know a woman he felt he knew a little too well already, given the short time they had actually been interacting.

Through a mirror...

But what a deep, honest mirror. He didn't enter the Salvage Yard when he got there, instead choosing to watch her and her crew in the dusk. She looked happy in motion; not beaming or anything, but he could read it in that light sure-footedness in her step, and the little extra motions that she left out of her so-called 'other line of work,' which was all fluid and lethal. Could read the way that contentment flowed into her crew as well, by how they moved. Harold had been on happy ships a couple times, and the Al Na'ir was a happy ship.

"I will not let anyone take you back into the dark," he thought, and was a little surprised by the vehemence in that conviction. Maybe a bit afraid of it, too.

The blues of dusk were beautiful. More... well, dusky was the only word. The lanterns were lit aboard the Al Na'ir, but he still stayed back and watched. The brigantine looked best in warm light; painted between the yellow glow of lanterns on deck and the fading sky, Maia looked like she was willing to rise with the moon.

"Lowe! Do you plan on bringing that paint in here?" Maia's voice rang out easily across the fence, without her having to actually cross that line into shouting. "I was ready to send someone out to see if you were making it yourself!"

"Aye aye, captain, I do!" He called back, merrily enough, and headed for the gate.

When he stepped through, he became an officer; the cheer didn't leave him, but he slipped into that part of himself with ease. Command, clean and simple, a first mate (officially or no) reporting to his captain. He would not step on Grey's toes, but so long as she was in drydock, he had no qualms about taking some charge of her maintenance.

It would not preclude the occasional look for Maia alone, stolen in moments. A mate respects his captain.

But the man could not resist the occasional warm, hopeful look.

September 29, 2007 - In Circles


Friday.

Another week had nearly ended, and another week had proven itself to be full of more than a few unexpected turns. First thing in the morning, the Al Na'ir would depart on a course south, to sell vaccine to a few of the outlying island regions that might indeed be able to use it, and pick up fruits and vegetables to bring back to RhyDin proper. When she pulled out of port, her Captain would not be on deck, but rather watching from the docks.

Grey was ready, and if at any time he faltered, he had a great ally and partner in Ayrani. The two of them were top-notch sailors, and decent officers, to boot. Like their captain, they indeed possessed the goodwill of the crew.

In the course of a few short days, Maia and Harry had figured out that sailing together on the Al Na'ir was not a desirable situation, in any way. While they both seemed to handle the chain of command well, and to maintain exemplary propriety, it just required too much. Maia did not want to see Mister Lowe, day in, day out, his squared shoulders and that curt, businesslike nod. She rather wanted to see her friend.

Sailing together in another context, however, was entirely feasible. Harry had mentioned it, and the idea had become something of a wild plan. Heady, he had said. To drydock, Harry had brought a vessel small enough for two to manage. Maia had dreamed up a different job and taken the neccessary steps to make it real. There was work to be done on the ketch, but there were plenty of hands to do it, and within a matter of days, they could be at sea.

There would be no crew, for whom they must put on that rigid sense of propriety.

There would be no prying eyes and ears. No columns. No others.

There would be no responsibilites, save those that kept the ship afloat, on course, and from harm's way.

There would only be the sea. And Harry.

It was either the greatest idea conceived in recent memory, or stupid, stupid, impulsive and stupid.

Maia walked slowly back to what served as home that night, mulling it over as carefully as she could. She turned the words around and around in her head, trying to make sense of them. The two sailors had passed words of every imaginable color between them in their short but rather intense friendship, and some of them had given her pause. Rightfully so.

Words always gave her trouble, on some level, as so few people in the world could ever actually say what they actually meant. Harry spoke with great conviction when a thing mattered to him, and she knew enough to know that her well-being was such a thing, but to what degree? On that, he was still vague. Maia hadn't been any better though. Probably because she still didn't know any better.

One thought echoed through her mindscape, the evening's truthful refrain.

You are playing with fire.

Upon arriving at the inn, Maia strolled into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and drink it. She wished to be warmed through before she went up, and went to bed. As she sipped the tea, a blend of lavender that she laced with honey, the woman tried to conjure up a string of words to tuck away, words to pull out again when the situation demanded them.

Eventually she had the good sense to give up on that idea. Maia sure as hell couldn't figure out how to manage a situation that may or may not arise between herself and a man whom she may or may not ardently desire (though she certainly loved him).

I certainly love him.

The thought was a tender one, the same she carried for those that she had protected, held, laughed with, wept with. It was a thought that, for her, rarely happened with those with whom she had a carnal attachment. She also knew that throwing the body into the mix was usually the fastest way to screw over the heart and destroy something that had been perfectly wonderful beforehand.

From her concerns over that heady plan and the complicated journey ahead, through her long walk and careful thinking, Maia had gotten absolutely nowhere. She had only roamed in circles. After finishing the tea, she slipped up the stairs to the room they were keeping together, entering quietly and locking the door behing her. Maia had left her things in one corner: a bag packed well for said journey and a small trunk with her most important supplies.

"It's me." Maia whispered, though she was sure he would not sleep through the sound of the door.

"So it would seem." He whispered sleepily. There was no need for a whisper, but people do so often answer a whisper in kind.

She smiled, though none could tell in the dark. Maia brought her bag into the bathroom and in there, lights on, door closed, she disrobed and dressed in her version of sleepwear: button down shirt with the sleeves cuffed to her elbows and an old pair of cotton pants with a drawstring waist. All blue.

She caught her own reflection in the mirror, and idly wondered if that was really an accurate representation of what the world saw when they looked at her. Mirrors, though they reflected things so plainly, often seemed to distort things. It was their paradoxical nature to do so. That night, in the glass, Maia saw only a woman who was too old and too tired to worry about anything that fell outside of one easy thought:

Just be.

Good advice. Maia killed the light, and waited in the dark for long enough to allow her eyes to adjust somewhat. After she dropped the bag containing her clothes off in the corner, Maia crawled carefully into the bed. It was already warm and it smelled so delightfully like her friend.

As was becoming their custom, she bypassed the pillow in favor of Harry's shoulder, fitting herself neatly into the spaces at his side. With a sigh she curled in, setting her hand again on that spot it fell most naturally against his chest. With a sigh he answered, reaching up to squeeze her hand, just once. Maia's hand was warm.

"You listened," he said, and she smiled and she let her heavy eyelids fall shut.

"Aye, love. Good night."

"Sleep well, Maia."

October 2nd, 2007 - Te Maru


The little ketch now gleamed, a new coat of paint settling on her hull. It was high grade marine paint, too, the kind that had originally been on her, and that had doubtless saved her while she sat quite awhile on land, winterized or no.

Her masts were stepped in now, as well; he and Maia, in true sailor form, had rigged up a system of blocks and tackles so that two people (who were not large by even regular standards, let alone Rhy'Din standards) could actually lift and maneuver the heavy poles. From there, they fitted the collars, working as fast as possible, and then ran the new rigging. One stiff breeze could ruin it all.

They did it quicker than the breeze.

Her sails were a deep, dark red; with the black hull, and the golden woodwork that made up her decks, she looked like someone's prized yacht. Harold wouldn't stoop to calling her that, though, even it had been what she was -- she was a ketch, and he never did like the way the word 'yacht' felt to him. It implied a flippancy he couldn't stand, when it came to the sea.

It was edging towards evening when he finally got around to painting the ketch's name on her bow, along the line, in the same gold he used on the Al Na'ir.

'Te Maru'

The Calm.

So many people always referred to the calm before the storm. He wanted to think that this was the calm after the storm; that time when the air was still charged, and the yellow sunlight was breaking through the dark gray clouds, and then the storm was gone... rolled off somewhere else, leaving behind clean air and the drying out, and the grass standing back up, and the world settling again.

Leaving behind something old and new all at once; a world transformed, but recognizable.

He smiled to himself. A brief glimpse at the strange way life flowed; how it sometimes doubled back to look at itself, through older eyes, and admire how it all ended up weaving together.

He had no illusions that he had found all of his answers. In fact, Harold would say if asked, that he was more uncertain than ever about who exactly he was, and where he fit in this new and old world. But he was all right with it; all right with just being, and figuring it out one piece at a time.

Transformed, but recognizable.

After the storm, the calm.

October 5th, 2007 - Tybed


Harold didn't get up immediately; after the long day before, he'd slept like the dead, which was a familiar enough feeling. That heavy, black, mostly dreamless place he discovered at some point when he was barely more than a child, and had visited at intervals since then. Depending on his mindstate.

He didn't get up; he just turned and buried his face in a pillow, drawing his legs up and feeling entirely too comfortable for the moment. He could still smell Maia, and he could feel the dawn, and it didn't take much thought for him to figure out where she would be.

After laying there awhile in the dark, he finally got up, got dressed and headed for the galley. He'd promised to make breakfast, and it was about the only meal he could do a passable job on. It had been learned as a kindness, as it were; he remembered how, and that little thought brought him right back to where he didn't really want to be in his head.

"Why not just talk about it?" he asked himself, as he cracked some eggs into a bowl, feeling the slow morning swells around the hull. There was only really one answer, and he actually shrugged to himself, more facially, when he thought it.

"Because I'm scared."

He had not expected, in all his life, to be here. In this moment, on this boat, with this woman. He hadn't even expected it, really, until he jumped on the plan for them to sail together and take some joy in their lives. God knew, fewer people could have earned that right to peace.

Harold was slowly coming to the conclusion, though, that some of the greatest things that had ever happened in his life were things that had blindsided him.

And some of the most terrible.

He knew this wasn't the latter, but that didn't mean that it didn't scare him. He liked certainties; yearned for certainties. He'd known so few of them in his life, so few things he could trust beyond any doubts, and then there were also times when he trusted and was burned for it, and it was hard to have unconditional faith like he once had.

He could not picture her wanting to be a wife. Or a mother. He could not imagine her being willing to settle down for a few years to raise babies. He couldn't imagine her doing any of that, and those were all things that he had wanted once, and maybe wanted again. Not a little woman tied to shore, but a wife and someone to have children with, and someone to grow old with.

Then again, he wondered how many people had really seen her as he had of late; peaceful, and easy-going, and dressed in loose nightclothes with wild hair and a contented, sleepy look. Maia unfettered, he thought -- she tugged on his heart in all the right ways like that. Just a human woman; not the warrior, not the demon-slayer, not the cool captain, but a woman who dreamed of better and wanted peace. That, to him, was more beautiful than any number of dagger-wielding amazonian women of Rhy'Din.

Not that the rest of her wasn't damned impressive.

Still, he couldn't see her ever being willing to do any of that. Even for a year, really, let alone two or three, and another fifteen or so to raise children to adults. Harold wasn't even sure why he felt that yearning himself; he just did.

That wasn't the only reason he was afraid to talk, though. Probably not even one of the bigger ones.

He wasn't quite ready to think about the bigger ones in this moment, either. So, he shook himself away from them as well as he could, and got the breakfast plates ready. It was just after dawn, and a nice breeze was rising that they could jump on after they ate.

For now, they had the sea, and each other, and peace.

For now, that was enough.

The wondering still tickled, though, somewhere in the back of his mind.

October 13, 2007 - To Mend

Five.

It was a daunting number. Any more and she and Harry might well be dead and gone, a rotting house for a nest of eggs. What had Harry said? Rotting cradle? Yuck. It was astonishing that there was so little collateral damage, and a testament to not only the fighting abilities of the pair aboard, but also the eerily efficient way in which they seemed to be able to work together.

She barely slept. Nothing calmed her enough. Not the shower, nor the careful manner in which Harry had dressed her cuts. Not even when finally, the adrenaline that had coursed through her subsided and left her sore in ways and numb in others. Maia didn?t want to face the dark that night, but she put on a good show of being still, of being quiet, of breathing evenly.

Certainly, her leg was sore in the morning, where the beast had managed to get one lucky swipe in. Harry had taken great pains to see the wound properly dressed, and given time, there may well be little, if any evidence of that battle left upon the flesh of her leg. It was on the mend, though she had to wonder if her soul truly was, as well. She hated the memories that such encounters could stir, the feelings, the way she reacted.

Maia hated the grotesque thrill of it.

Like it or not, a large part of her was made for just such endeavors, and as certainly as she knew that she could lose herself in the roll of the sea, she knew that she could lose herself in the fog of shadows. It was nearly as easy. Such ease came at a price though, and with any taste of the latter the nightmares always returned. Sometimes for a night. Sometimes for a week.

They carried on, nearer and nearer the twin towns where they had some serious business. The day that followed the attacks was a busy one. There were small repairs to be done on the ship, and Maia and Harry took turns between those small tasks and minding the wheel. The mainsail had been patched to stabilize things and keep them moving. It would be better repaired when they made landfall in a matter of days. That would give Maia something to do while Harry headed in on a few personal errands.

Every task had a purpose, and for Maia, much of that purpose was immersion, distraction, and a good excuse to maintain her distance and keep her mouth shut. Still, she knew when their eyes met that Harry could see past her game face and know that things were unsettled, again. It would be so for all her days, perhaps, until she could put the shadows behind her. He made it easier and harder all at once. If she let her guard down for as much as a second, those dark eyes might peel the skin away from her, and see what was truly in there.

Everyday she fought to keep a world of blue in her heart, and on her mind, that hopeful place that let her breathe easy, and let her know the sun.

Everyday, Maia struggled to forget the temptations of the black and remove its taint.

To mend it all would take some doing.

October 22, 2007 - First Light


Before she opened her eyes, she knew that she was alone. Maia had slept too many years with one eye open to sleep through anyone entering a room. With both eyes open and the first tendrils of dawn tumbling through the lacy curtains of the inn, her knowledge was confirmed. The bed across the room was untouched, still very neatly made. Curled on her side, she clutched the blankets tucked under her arms a bit more tightly as she frowned.

She was cold.

Making the bed was a quick affair, and dressing took close to no time at all. What remained of the night clung to the morning air in a just-chilly reminder that the hottest days of the year were gone. She donned a somewhat oversized sweater against the chill, as though the finely spun and knitted armor could help.

Having locked her door behind her, she started to walk back to the place where she had last left the Welshman. The sunrise bathed the world in its rather glorious colors, and were her eyes focused on the sky, she might enjoy them. Maia had long loved the way that, in the morning, darkness turned to long shadows that grew shorter by the moment. Those moments that trimmed the shadows did her heart well.

What of this heart, this ridiculous organ? Hers functioned admirably well these days, despite the scars upon it. Indeed, there were enough scars there to rival her embattled skin. In some ways, she wore that inner nature on her outside. She was marked in startling and ofttimes alarming ways, but she was still standing, and she was still whole. Maia could not help but wonder, in darker minutes, what would be the thing that finally orchestrated her undoing. Some marks never healed over. Some wounds festered, some wrongs never righted, and some pains left behind only bitterness, regret, white hair.

Those wrongs, those wounds, those pains were all forgotten for a moment as she came within eyeline of that spot at the river. Her heart swelled with relief, with affection, with concern. She could not think of herself then, not with those wrongs and wounds and pains forgotten. It was the best kind of selflessness; not the sort that could haunt and destroy a person, but rather the type that warms and feeds a soul.

There was little to be done, really. Maia knew that as she approached, and she would not waste her breath on so useless a question. Few things vexed like an impotent question. She moved with just enough sound to be heard, and settled into a crouch beside him. Her friend was unwell, and she would be damned a hundred times over before she would lose him to his own shadows. Harry was a man who would rage against her darkness with her if it was what she needed. For that, for everything, Maia would sit in the first light with him, and she would wait. She did not reach for him, but she could be reached. Her silence said everything.

I am here for you.

November 5, 2007 - Talisman


--
"It's possible I'm wrong, but I think that's how the Browning makes Harry feel. It's a connection not with the gun as a weapon, but with himself...of all he's been, all he's seen, and all he's survived."

"Like a... symbol?"

"Aye, but still more than that. Like a... charm. A talisman."

Lilith and Vicfryn, 03/06/04
--


Harold tilted his head and looked at the docks, thoughtfully.

It had to be close by. Archie didn't have enough time, when Harold had been dropped back into the world of the living, to take it and hide it too far away. It had to be, at least, within shouting distance.

It had to be safe, dry and secure. It wasn't in the Maritime; Harold had spent enough time searching that place, and he knew it better than anyone. It wasn't in the cellar. That didn't leave all that many places that it would be safe, dry and secure in this area.

He eyed the docks, and then he eyed the Dream.

"Nothing of him that doth fade
"But doth suffer a sea-change
"Into something rich and strange."

Archie knew, better than anyone, that Harold would never willingly have stepped on the Midsummer Night's Dream again. Not because he hadn't loved that schooner; he had. It had been, once long ago, what Te Maru was now.

Hope. Escape. Freedom. The sea.

He had taught Pacey how to steer on that boat; had gone island hopping with the crew, had sailed through a storm with Archie. It had meant something wonderful to him once.

Then Archie disappeared. Somewhere, deep down, Harold blamed the schooner just as much as he did his best friend; what had once been hope and freedom had become a symbol for a hurt that went beyond words. The boat took his friend away. He never wanted to put his feet on her decks again; he almost didn't even want to look at her. She was yet another reminder of how much in his own life had gone horribly wrong.

He looked at her now, and his eyes narrowed slightly.

She had been a pretty boat; she still was, though the wear of years wasn't hard to see. God only knew where Kennedy had gone.

But, Harold had to admit, that the schooner and Archie had been what brought back Al Na'ir, and the barque, and the now blackened skeleton brig. And if not for the Al Na'ir, he would not now have Maia d'Thalia.

"What tangled webs," he thought, smirking internally, and didn't bother to finish the line to himself.

He was going to take the Dream with them. He wouldn't abandon her, even if she was a painful reminder of things he just didn't want to remember. He didn't have it in him to just leave her rot, or be picked up by someone else.

Right now, though, the symbol of lost youthful hopes could be the key to reclaiming a certain tangible reality.

He steeled himself, and then walked purposefully for the schooner.

December 1, 2007 - Chapters, I. - Kit



"Eighty-six years is a long time. In my world, airplanes were a new thing, automobiles were a new thing; technology in general was still pretty new as well. It felt a little like the whole world was shifting in some huge way; like it really was the end of not just an era, but of everything. Values, ideals, professions, everything.

"I've always been pretty good at adapting to things, but it was hard not to feel obsolete, even in my own world and my own time. So, you can only imagine what it felt like to wake up, face down in the sand, in a whole different world, eighty-six years in my future.

"Mind you, I didn't understand back then that Rhy'Din wasn't on Earth, even though it was a pretty obvious conclusion. I guess maybe I didn't want to understand, and so I didn't.

"It was 1998, and not only was I over eight decades behind the times, but I wasn't even in the right world anymore.

"It was cold, though, and I didn't have a whole lot of choice. It was very firmly either survive or don't, and the only thing I had was the clothes on my back and a reasonable desire not to freeze to death. So, I did the only sensible thing -- I found some odd jobs to hold me over and I managed to get myself off of the streets. For a week or so, I slept under a bridge and scrambled to find enough change to eat, but it got easier after that.

"I wasn't alone, though; little had I known, but my friend James had ended up dropped into the realm just like I was. Inevitably, we met up; things got easier, then, because at least we weren't facing this surreal exile alone anymore.

"Time passed. I did odd jobs, of course, but the oddest job I ended up deciding on came from a sort of random mention. See, I hadn't found a ship to sail on, which would have been my first choice, and I hadn't found anyone in need of a steady laborer, so I was casting about for some kind of profession to keep me and James alive and in one piece.

"Offhandedly, and I'm certain jokingly, he said, 'Why don't you be a lawyer? You like to argue.'"

"I was younger, then, and it didn't really take much to challenge me. So, thinking myself quite smart, I got a bunch of law books and started studying.

"We were still doing odd jobs, but whenever we weren't working, we were studying. James had decided that if I was going to try to be a lawyer, he would as well, and therefore we'd both be there with coffee and lawbooks and next to no sleep. I did find I enjoyed it, though. It was detailed and law in Rhy'Din was written in some patently absurd ways, but I liked it anyway.

"We sat the bar the first time. James passed, much to my dismay -- to my dismay because I didn't. He had a crisp new bar certificate, and I was left to hit the books again. Still, that's what I did, and when the second time came around, I was ready. This time, I had passed.

"By then, we'd managed to scrape together enough money to rent an office downtown. It was a smallish place; there was the reception area, which was really just a glorified bit of space. Then, past a half-open wall or so was my desk, and his on the other side. And behind both of those was the back room, which came to be my favorite place there.

"There were apartments upstairs, but it would be months before I'd even see those. For then, James and I cut our costs and slept in the back room of the office. Luckily, the bathroom had a small shower, so it wasn't entirely unfeasible. Still, for being part of a supposedly high-paying profession, we were anything but rich.

"Our big break came almost entirely by accident.

"See, in the era I came from, women were almost universally dressed like ladies; even the lowest class woman wore a dress, and etiquette was considered a requirement. So, when this woman walked in wearing pants, and a gun, and boots, I was just...

"I'm not sure what I was. Shocked, a little. I'd been in Rhy'Din quite awhile by now, but even though most of the women I'd encountered dressed a bit scantily, they still dressed like women. Now, here was this woman who was dressed a good deal more like a man. And carrying a gun to boot!

"So, I was shocked. And very taken with her, too.

"Her name was Kit Pryde, and she was a detective for the Rhy'Din Police Department. She didn't make her speech flowery, she didn't waste time with unnecessary etiquette. She was polite, mind you, but in a very blunt and straightforward way. When she had something to say, there was nothing demure about her.

"And she was beautiful. Not like the classical 'Rhy'Din beauty,' but in a living, breathing woman kind of way. She had substance, I suppose you could say. She was real; imperfect, and beautiful because of it. She had this long brown hair that she mostly kept tied up, and she was actually taller than me by an inch or so, but even then, I would have done just about anything to get her attention.

"When she walked in, though, it was on business. See, she'd been hurt recently in a gunfight and had been taken to Rhy'Din Faith Hospital. The problem was, the doctor who had treated her was her partner's ex-wife.

"Wait, it just keeps getting worse.

"Now, this might not have been a problem, if the ex-wife hadn't basically decided that Kit had stolen her husband. (He was a bastard named Robert; I still would like to meet him in a dark alley.) So, when Kit was being treated, the ex-wife (Michelle was her name) didn't use sterile procedures and nearly killed Kit.

"Luckily, Kit survived. So, when she showed up in our humble little office that day, it was because she wanted to file a malpractice suit against this Michelle woman and Rhy'Din Faith.

"Over the next several weeks, we put the case together. It wasn't hard, really; between video tapes, depositions and otherwise, it was practically air tight. And we didn't even end up going to trial before Rhy'Din Faith (and Michelle) decided to settle out of court for quite a nice settlement.

"During all of this, we saw a lot of Kit. She was tough, but she was very sweet as well -- kind, would be the right word. She believed in her job, and was deeply devoted to her partner. She was honest, blunt, and she'd sit and drink coffee with James and I in the back room. Needless to say, I just kept liking her more and more as time went on.

"After the settlement, she'd still come around. Naturally, after that pay-off, James and I were far more comfortable financially than we were. We ended up buying the office; buying the entire building, and we moved into the apartments upstairs. We'd occasionally get someone in for a consultation, but believe it or not, the case against Rhy'Din Faith was our first and last official act as lawyers.

"Time went on. I still did odd jobs, mostly to keep myself busy. James grew more and more depressed, though, and it seemed like nothing I did could cheer him up -- he missed his home, and family. I'd left mine long ago, but he never did, and I think between that and the often chaotic and unforgiving nature of Rhy'Din, it would inevitably break his heart.

"A good deal happened in that almost year or so. I've not even covered the half of it. But regardless, one dark day in the late fall of '99, James disappeared.

"Things had been getting grim for awhile. The Rhy'Din Police Department was breaking apart; Kit was desperately trying to hold it together. I saw less and less of her. She was also trying hard to watch over her partner, who was stringing her along for months until he ditched her to go back to his ex-wife (the same one who'd tried to kill Kit). I knew she was having a bad time of it, but I thought that I would give her some space, and that if she needed me, she knew where to find me.

"I was lonely myself; no friends, no work, and Rhy'Din seemed more miserable by the day. Still, I didn't know how to go back home, or I would have by then. And I figured that Kit might need me.

"It was winter when the call came, about a year after I'd been dropped into Rhy'Din. A lot of that time is a blur to me, though I'm not sure why, but I remember the call. I was standing at my desk, organizing some paperwork, drinking coffee, trying to keep my chin up.

"The voice on the other end told me that I was her emergency contact. And that Kit Pryde, my friend, dedicated detective, this beautiful and strong woman had shot herself.

"I remember that moment. Sometimes, I think too well. I remember I dropped my coffee mug, my favorite mug, and it shattered to pieces on my desk. I remember dropping the phone, too.

"The rest of it, though, I don't remember so well. I know that I must have ran, and that I'm certain I didn't know where I was going. Just that I had to go, I had to get away, any way that I could. I didn't want to see this. I didn't want to bury her. I didn't want her to be dead. I guess I must have thought that if I ran away from it, then it couldn't be true. I don't know; I just know that I ran.

"And just like that, I was out of Rhy'Din.

"Back in my own world, my own time. No memory of what had happened. It had been just as though I had never left; James and I were there, and we were about to set sail.

"It would be over two years later before I would remember Rhy'Din, namely because I was to be dropped back into it. It would be over two years, too, before I would remember Kit Pryde, and what had happened, and breaking my coffee mug, and realizing that this beautiful woman was dead.

"And another six before I would understand why."

Gratitude


The words tumbled from him, but her reply was not returned in kind. Maia knew that words were not the most honest things she carried, and if anyone had ever deserved an honest response, it was Harry. That night, she was truthful about her feelings, at length.

It was dawn before she found what she had wanted to express, and it lay somewhere between that place of half-asleep where dreamlike thoughts wandered, and the warmth of her lover's arms. She left both, and Maia wrapped herself up in a blanket to sit in the galley, scribbling in the worn leather book that she kept safely near her, nearly always. It was one of the few things that had survived the fire at the bakery, and she was grateful. The words, though scrawled hastily, had stewed for long enough that they felt proper.

My mouth is like my blade. A sharp tongue is well suited to cut a person to ribbons, to tear them to shreds. In that have I had great practice. It is in the act of tenderness that I am lacking. I find that even these words difficult to put to paper, and surely they would be impossible to lend voice. I wish I could tell him, I wish I had the clarity to tell him. He said that he will love me forever, and I believe him. How that terrifies me. How long it has been since I believed anyone could, or would feel that way. Harry makes me believe it.

I was still wrong inside when I returned to this place. Years in the dark had grated on me. It ate at my core, like a worm inside the flesh of an apple. I should have collapsed into nothing, or withdrawn into the shadows again. At least I had a place there, and here, there was no other quarter available for a person like me. Brief comfort, perhaps. Distraction, certainly, but no home.

Harry told me that I saved him. Does he understand that I can do this only because of him? That man took a gamble on me. He gave me a home, a place to belong, a place of light and worth; not a place of darkness and horrors that I quietly shudder to recall. He did these things at once, when we were barely more than strangers. Because of him, I wake at sunrise instead of sunset, and I stand in the sun and the spray of the sea instead of the shadows.

It may sound like madness, because at the time I believed him dead, but there were sometimes I felt that I loved him this summer. Sleeping in that cabin on the Al Na'ir, reading the old logs of that dear ship, seeing the undefinable something he had left imprinted on those men, perhaps in the very timbers of the brigantine... I knew what measure of a man he was in what was left behind. I know mourned him before I knew him; I remember that day well for its grief, for its sublime hope.

And now, Harry is my reason. I wish that he could understand that.


The ink dried, and she closed the journal as she closed her eyes to breathe. Maia was overwhelmed from all that she felt these days, and she knew that it was going to take time to manage such things with relative ease. A person cannot endure the things that she did for years without dimming the light in their soul, and letting their heart hide away. Many monsters are made this way, one day at a time until all the days bleed into something gruesome. She had escaped this, perhaps only just, but she was free of it all the same. Maia had a human connection again, a purpose, and it brought her a forgotten sort of peace.

Calm again, she simply secured the blanket around her, and set to the deliciously mundane task of tea and breakfast. Maybe she could never explain it to him, but she would show Harry this love and this gratitude, everyday.


That damnable man had set her on fire.

December 2007 - Bogeymen

Cold bright day. Those had always been some of her least favorite. The chill in the air just bordered on bitter, though there was not a cloud in the sky to hint to the sun that winter had come upon the world again. Short of a day in, with warm distraction aplenty, there was really nothing to ward off the blinding chill. Accepting of this unpleasant reality, Maia went below deck, to the little space that stored what few personal effects she still had.

That day, that strange old trunk held a particular gravity, a magnetism that drew her near. Before long, she knelt beside it, running her fingers along the weathered detail of the wood and metal as pale blues scrutinized the dappled detail. Just like its owner, the trunk had weathered many a storm, and it too wore its scars on the outside.

Twin keys were inserted into twin locks, and with a deft, familiar motion, she turned them in unison. Click. Music in one note; a haunting sort of homecoming. The call still nagged, but for months, she had not answered. She had stayed where it was bright. From that trunk she drew a few of her most useful blades; for maintenance, she told herself; but it was not the blades that she had maintained day after day, every day of the past six. That day made seven.

Oh god, the seventh day?

The long knife was sharp, slightly curved, elegant in that way that only the elves truly understood. The words etched into the blade in meticulous lettering were every inch as artistic as they were useful. Hain ?-'rogon.

With the curved knife sheathed to one leg, and her favorite cutlass hanging at the hip, the once pirate, well bundled, of course, stalked to the place she had claimed for her own. Towards the southern end of Dockside, there was a group of piers without ship, or shop, or substance, these days. Forgotten, like so many pieces of the realm.

Maia moved slowly and methodically at first, warming into a series of movements very much like a kata. Uniform steps, careful movements. Parry, disengage, slice, feint, beat, thrust, riposte... her style had no clear single provenance. Like so many things in this world, in her life, it was a tangle of influences. As the minutes progressed, and a faint sweat crossed her brow, the movements became swifter, more athletic, more intense. From a distance, an old man looked up from his ledger to watch through the window. Maia paused, and bowed her head, the cutlass in her right hand loose and ready at her side.

?Staring off again?someone will accuse you of senility.?

?Shh, boy, it?s about to start.?

?What? What??

He nodded a little as he extended a knobbly, inkstained finger, a strange little smile on his face. The clerk could not understand what had compelled that little thing to come out every day for a week and do what she did, but he had been so interested in the practice of it that he had noted that every day, it was the same sequence.

They approached from all sides, one for each corner. The lout, the lady, the lackey, the stooge. The fifth, the Progenitor, stood away, watching without expression, eerily still. The lady was armed with a falchion. Sick bastards, they had the nerve to laugh. It began quickly. The woman wielding the short, wide blade advanced, swinging frenetically in a deadly arc. Maia parried, but rather than strike back, she disengaged, and booted the lady away. The lout behind her had crept close, thinking her distracted. Meaty, cold hands reached out to grab her by the coat, to send her sprawling to the damp dirt of the path, but it was as though she knew every move he would make, every thought that he had. She drove the cutlass backwards, a thrust and a twist, working her feet to pull the blade from the lout even as she moved from the path where he would fall for a while.

Perhaps two seconds after, with a leap and a heavy swing, the lackey would be the first to perish. One clean strike of her sharpened blade saw that his head was no longer married to his body. He was dust before he hit the ground. The pirate looked through the cloud, marked the eyes of the two that remained. They feared death as only immortals might. No soul, no after. Just dust. That fear fed her conviction, so she drew the elvish blade, holding it in her right after shifting the cutlass to the left. Crouched like a panther, pale eyes danced as the blades caught their share of moonlight.

The lady came again, but she was not laughing anymore. As she dashed in with a cut, a slice, a thrust, the stooge circled around to try to find his advantage. They ought to have brought more weapons. With cutlass and with grit, Maia engaged the wicked looking falchion and sent both blades to the dirt below, her own weapon clattering atop the falchion. The lady grabbed her by the hair, fangs bared, but did not have time to register her surprise as she too became dust. Traces of that dust whispered off of the edge of the curved elvish blade, still grasped in her right hand. Silently, she thanked the paladin for that blessed instrument.

Just then, the stooge snaked an inhumanly strong arm around her neck. He could hear the wild flail of her heart in her chest, and he wanted so badly to have a taste, but the Progenitor, eerily calm, shook his head. All in good time. He pulled the arm tighter to subdue her?but she would not stop fighting. She would never stop fighting. Maia drove the knife into his side, and it burned like nothing he had felt since the rebirth. As he screamed in pain, off guard, she turned his slip into her advantage, sending the assailant tumbling to the ground at her feet. Before he had time to run, she drove that blade through his heart.

The Progenitor watched as she retrieved her cutlass. Without ceremony, Maia finally dispatched the lout, still writhing and weak from the rather impressive hole she had put in the middle of him. They were alone again, only the ashen dust as their witness. He moved closer, gliding silent steps. White knuckled, her heart still pounding, the pirate kept a careful hold of her blades. He would not take her. Not this time. Never again.


?No.?

Maia opened her eyes. The cold air bore the fragrance of the sea with great clarity. This was not some darkened wooden path ten years ago. Dockside, close to her heart, her home. She breathed for a moment, feeling the chill of winter inside and out. At least the nights were finally getting shorter. The old man and his clerk went back to work. With clean blades back in their sheath, the woman moved back towards the ship. She would leave behind the old ways, if she could, but she knew she could not forget the dance, the rhythm, the deadly focus required by her knives.

In spite of longer, better days ahead, there were still bogeymen in the closet.

February 15, 2008 - Into the Sunrise


He does not fear dead men.

She lays there with her head on his shoulder, a comfortable position that has been theirs now for months. Looks at the clear blue light that reflects off of her wild, dark hair. Knows that when she opens her eyes, they will be pale and intense in this early light; burning, beautiful -- always intense, even when she first stirs awake.

Right now, she sleeps and she isn't stirring yet. And he breathes and enjoys this moment, letting his mind roam. Outside, the winter air is cold, but inside of this flat it's warm and cozy, and he can smell the bakers doing their thing the floor below. Later, they'll probably grab some breakfast, drink some tea, and then spend the day attending to their duties and responsibilities.

He does not fear dead men.

Maia sleeps. He knows that inside of her are the joys and sorrows of love affairs long past. Those that called her out of the darkness; those that put her into the darkness. He wonders sometimes what expressions cross her face that she unwittingly stole from one of those men that she speaks of rarely, but with her soul. He wonders on occasion if a certain inflection she speaks is actually theirs. Sometimes a distant look crosses her face, and he knows that she is revisiting them.

He knows all of this because he has the same; the fingerprints of past lovers permanently etched into his soul. The moments of his life with those people, some dead, some just gone -- knows that he revisits them with a fond smile, or that an expression of his own is actually theirs, or a lift in his voice that they once spoke. He knows all of this.

In the pale blue light of dawn, he lays in bed with her and thinks of those men that she had loved and lost. He does not fear dead men. But holding her, feeling her warm and alive, knowing those eyes will look into him soon, he feels something else entirely towards her past lovers. For being with her once. For being a part of her now.

Gratitude.

"I would not have her, if not for you."

He smiles into the sunrise, and hopes against hope that maybe they will hear this.

"Thank you."

March 15, 2008 - Antony


The air was fairly warm, as though spring had decided to overtake winter in one fell swoop; one moment it had been snow, and now it was rain, but no thunder. Just rain and wet planks, rotting snow by the road, and the promise of longer and brighter days.

Harold stood on the dock he knew he had gone to one year before. He didn't remember the actual event; knew only that he had walked out of the Maritime with the firm intention of firing a bullet into himself and ending it all. The hurt. It was everywhere. Everything he loved had been jagged glass in his chest, cutting with every movement. Everything he cared about had been a painful reminder of how good his life had once been.

There came a time when he could not bear it. Couldn't stand and fight any longer. Couldn't keep waiting for the next blow to fall.

Sometimes, even now, he worried that he was weaker for that. For breaking. For being unable to imagine spending any more time in that state, where there was nothing but the shattered pieces of a life he'd loved around him.

He stood on the dock in the rain. His Browning was in hand, a solid, familiar grip, comfortable and comforting. He had no desire to use it, but he held it in his right hand because that was fitting to him. That he should stand here, in the spot he knew that he had pulled the trigger, and reflect on the year that had gone by. That he should stand here, in the spot that had perhaps begun the road that lead to suicide, many years ago now.

He thought about it all. About choices. About his life; the brother, the son, the sailor, the bartender, the friend, the lover.

The fighter.

The suicide.

He thought about it all. About those he loved, and lost, loved and lost again and again. About the heartbreak, and the healing. He thought about the golden summer sun on the floor of the Maritime, and the blue winter night with a pale-eyed woman in his arms, making him want to breathe on.

It had been a year since he'd pulled the trigger. The pain that had driven him to it had faded to a point where it no longer consumed him; he could go days without it crossing his mind once. He could laugh again (oh, Maia, such a gift), could feel joy again, could dream again of happy times and better days coming.

It was not to say that he never felt hurt, or lost, or as though time was slipping from him through the song in his soul. And it was not to say that there weren't still monsters in the dark, that could terrify him. It was not to say that he didn't have regrets, or broken dreams.

But he had hope now.

One year later, Harold stood on the dock with his Browning in hand, and tipped his head back to feel the rain on his face.

He smiled.

On the Ides of March, Caesar might be missing, but Antony remained.