Posted By admin on February 1, 2010
“All of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.” –Dale Carnegie
Melody found herself unable and unwilling to pay attention to where her footsteps led her, in the midnight rain. The tears that poured down her cheeks blinded her view. The delicate color she applied to her eyelids and cheeks earlier that night, in order to make them stand out, ran in streaks and stung her eyes. Her nose ran in an unbecoming fashion; hysterics left no room for the beauty of maidenly grief. The worst part was that she did not care what the passing crowds thought of her any longer. They had no sympathy for her, anyhow; any girl worth approaching would not be making such a scene. She was alone, again, and just when she had begun to believe in miracles for the first time in years.
She tripped over her own feet as she reached up with a silken sleeve to wipe the mess from her face; down she went into the muddy street on her hands and knees, the hem of her gown as torn and filthy as her soul. At once the tears halted, and gave way to hysterical laughter despite the blood that began to well from the scrapes on her hands. She could feel the crowd looking onward; their eyes were downcast, but she knew they watched beneath veiled lashes and furrowed brows. They wanted a show, and she was giving it to them, like some kind of common prostitute; her laughter only grew louder at the thought that soon, she might very well fulfill that role. Anything had to be better than the House of Morrist, and the woman who lived there – and her puppet, Armer, who danced only for her.
A young boy in the crowd hesitated, his innocent gaze the only honest concern directed her way; his mother bumped into his unmoving back, scolding him in hushed tones and urging him to continue homeward, away from the strange woman in the street. Abashed by his behavior, he turned his face and obeyed; he was gone before Melody had time to miss him. She was done with believing in human kindness; the male sort of human kindness in particular. Boy or man, they were all the same; Armer, her childhood friend, had not grown or changed in his time away from her, so why should any other man possess the ability to transform into something greater than himself? It was too much to believe. Even her father had not changed; he had died instead.
Melody rose to her feet, her skirts heavy with grime, and began to walk again; it was a walk with purpose, though without aim or direction. She had long since lost her orientation within the city, having had little opportunity to familiarize herself with the distances to the apothecary or the market on her own. She had always followed in her father’s footsteps; always trusted him, or someone he knew, to guide her in the world. Without him, she was adrift on the wind, seeking something that could never be found. She had thought that Armer might know where his feet had once traveled, and guide her to him in the end, but he had failed her as well. She had wanted to love Armer; had believed that his foolishness and innocence were as much a part of him as her hopelessness was of her, but she had not known him as she thought she did. That much was clear, at least.
His words rang in her ears, striking her bruised heart again and again with fists of iron and steel. “Melody, would you never follow me again, please?” It was the final straw, after finding him again, then finding out who he had become since she had last seen him. He was afraid to come and save her, as shattered by the loss of Ronald Morrist as she herself had been; she had never guessed that her savior and suitor would be nothing more than a bottomless pit of fear! She had expected more, somehow; a white knight, born from his parents, Honor and Grace, reaching out to her with hands of Justice and Mercy. He had been so beautiful, in the darkest reaches of her mind; so gentle and kind, and had wiped away her tears with a single breath.
Armer was a failure, compared to him. She wanted to laugh at him; to push him back and away from her presence, but she couldn’t do that, not with him sipping tea at her grandmother’s behest! She had been willing to settle; he had not, it seemed, in the end. Not only did that mean that Armer had betrayed and destroyed her, it meant that she was not even a good enough woman to be settled for out of fear. What hope could there be for her after something like that? The knowledge made her want to scream; to tear out handfuls of her coiffed hair and twist apart the delicate jewelry that adorned her neck and earlobes. What good were those things now? What good could any of it be, in the end? A woman without a name and a husband was as good as dead, in the eyes of the world.
As the storm of her thoughts raged in her breast, Melody flew through the city, toward the outskirts, and at last into the forested reaches beyond the city gates. A well, designed to aid weary travelers on their path, if they had no time or means to enter the city itself, intersected her flight. The sight of it drew her up short, breathless, and disrupted her racing mind into something approaching sensibility; she had never been so far beyond the city, and was beginning to doubt her ability to return via the way she had come. If she had been a fool to believe in Armer, she was becoming a greater one with each step she took! Return, of course, would be impossible anyway.
The rain and the wind picked up, and Melody found herself bending double to try to stay afoot. Hopelessness began to creep in again as she crawled up to the edge of the well and clutched the dirty, rusted and crumbling side with all her might. She had intended to fall in the lee of the well, blocking at least some of the wind from shearing through what remained of her delicate gown, but instead her gaze fell to the rising water level in the bottom of the well. She had heard stories of maidens, awash in grief from their lost lovers or broken promises, who ended their lives in wells. Their families grieved and wailed when they found their bodies; in death, they guaranteed a place in the hearts of those they loved. She had thought it selfish, clutched in her father’s warm embrace; thought it meaningless, when playing with Armer as a boy. Now, face to face with her reflection, she thought she could see, for the first time, the sense in such an act.
She had thought a lot of things, over the course of her life. She had wanted so much to be free of the mindless masses that her grandmother insisted she ingratiate herself with. Life was to be an endless stream of parades and parties, court balls and lovelies, if she was to be anything more than Morrist’s failed excuse for a child. Her grandmother had done her utmost to make Melody into what she most desired, and Melody had paid it no mind, believing with all her heart in the stories her father told; the ones where the maidens with wit, cunning and intelligence never needed to throw themselves on the mercy of others. Things always worked out for them; their saviors always came, and cherished them just as much – if not more so – than their rich and realistic cousins. So many stories, packed with such beautiful promises; she had wanted to believe with all her might that such things were possible. Her father had told her never to believe everything she read, but she had never realized how deaf those words had been to her until just that moment.
In his eyes, she could have been anything. She could have gone off to war, in a knight’s clothing and armor, and become the light of the world. She could have gone questing for the herb that would cure the world’s ills, and created the potion that would erase the grief from human souls. She could have read all the books in the world, and been the smartest person alive, giving advice to the lost and lessons to the world’s children. She could even have been noble in any of these professions, had she the will to learn it. He had never pushed her, never said anything one way or another to make her think that the path of courtly intrigue was to be preferred. Only after his death did the necessity of such a way of life begin to enter her mind, and she had hated it with every forced smile and every ladylike word that crossed her lips. And yet, if she had followed it, she would not be standing here now, an empty shell of a childish flower blooming into the petals of a woman. She had never believed she had failed before, but her mind was changing fast.
A foul taste crept into her mouth and throat, choking her. To admit that she had failed, and that any woman expecting to survive in the world had to pursue the highest goals in life and become the possession of someone higher than herself was one thing. To admit it, however, was to admit that her grandmother – the woman who had done nothing to save her as Armer left her bleeding from the inside out, the woman who had used him to cause such brutal injuries on purpose to spite her, and the woman who resorted to blasphemy and witchcraft to achieve her goals in life – had been right all along.
Melody’s eyes fell on the well before her again, and her haggard appearance in the water. Given the choice between agreeing with Madam Morrist, and death, she thought that she might, in fact, prefer the latter.
Just as her arms began to find the strength to pull her weight up toward the well’s edge, her vision blurred further, and her eyes began to sting even worse than they had before. Thinking that more of her makeup had caused the flareup, Melody stopped pulling and rubbed her soaked sleeve across her eyes. If she was going to die, she wanted to do it with a minimum of pain; the necessary pain of suffering as her body surrendered to the water and gave up its last breath did not enter her mind. She was, after all, only a child when it came to the harsh realities of life. Blinking the soreness out of her eyes, she met with a sight beyond the well that almost stopped her heart by itself.
He was an old man; she knew that from his bushy black beard and matching black hair, but she knew by instinct that he was far, far older than his appearance belied. He was wrapped in a foreign cloak, crafted from patches of mismatched and ratty fabric. It appeared to wrap multiple times around his body in uneven layers, clasped in the front with a heavy brooch worth three times more than the jewelry she wore. His white shirt had billowing sleeves that tied at the wrists with what she thought might be fishing line; his breeches were tied at the waist and knee with the same.
He wore a wide straw hat that kept him and the ground around him free of the rain for what seemed like miles; no matter how hard the wind blew, the hat never shuddered or attempted to take flight. In his hands was a gnarled old root staff, which he used to aid his ample personage in movement. She had never seen such a large man; the elders she knew boasted thinning gray hair, frail bodies and feeble voices. Though he had not spoken, she felt his voice would be able to reach to the ends of the earth with a single word. How such a man had come upon her without notice in the silence of the night, she could not fathom, even in her frantic state.
If she had believed in magic outside of her grandmother’s filthy tricks, she might have known him at a glance to be a man from another place and time outside her own. Unfortunately, she had written that off as one more thing her father had meant when he told her not to believe everything she read.
He looked down at her and smiled; the corners of his black eyes crinkled up. She wanted to run then, but something held her feet rooted to the spot, and she found that she couldn’t look away from him, no matter how she might try. When he chose to move, his motions were deliberate and far more graceful than a creature his size and shape ought to command. She imagined she could feel the earth tremble as he walked, but it was only a child’s fancy; he was as light as a feather, for all the world knew of things. He approached her, the kind smile still rapt on his face, and at last ceased his approach within a giant’s handspan of her; his own hand, of course, which he offered to her. His fingers were free of callus and markings in a way that no man’s should be. She thought he might crush her in his palm, if he wanted; but he waited for her, as he would have for anyone he offered a simple handshake to.
She frowned at him for what felt like hours, trying to determine his nature; was he a friend, come from the dark of the night to save her, or was he a foe, seeking to end her life by his own hands instead of her own? At last, when she could find no reason inside herself to wait any longer, she reached out with timid fingers to brush his open palm, as if it might burn her at a touch. If he sought to kill her, then she would not end this night any differently than she had intended. If he was a friend… well, she could use one of those, though she did not for a moment trust his lasting impact on her life. After all, Armer had betrayed her, and her father had too; this man could not be anything greater than either of the two, or the two combined.
His black eyes smoldered with unnamed emotion at her touch, and just as she felt he was about to speak, the giant man seemed to glow with a strange, ethereal light. His appearance trembled before her eyes, as if he fought to maintain his existence in her world. At last, he lost the battle, and he began to dissolve into nothingness. The touch of his hand was the last of him to disappear. She heard the sound of bells in the distance; many shopkeepers tied bells to their doors in foreign places, to announce the coming and going of patrons. Her father’s books had said so. She had no idea why that was the first thing she thought of, but she knew at once that it must be true. Her father, it seemed, had not lied about everything, during her life.
It was then, in the silent void left by the giant’s passing, that the rain and wind stopped, leaving in their wake a still and silent night. The moon shone down on her from its height in the sky, illuminating everything around her and pressing back the darkness that had held her in thrall before. Melody looked down into the well again, but reflected there was not her own ragged face, but the glow of the moon, radiant and beautiful and alien at the same time.
Melody was a foolish girl; her understanding of this fact had grown tenfold since the moment she first saw the strange giant. She had suffered a great deal of injury and betrayal that night, and she was overwrought, exhausted and drained. Less than an hour ago, she was ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for infamy and love; now, the thought seemed as foolish as it ever had in her youth. Her flight from Armer, and from her grandmother, seemed foolish as well. The stories of her childhood spoke of women that fought, sometimes with swords, but most times with words, for what they believed in. She had not fought; she had allowed herself to be tricked and wounded instead, all while waiting to be saved like the very princesses she despised!
Armer was wicked, of that there was no question, and her grandmother more wicked still; but what she hadn’t considered before this moment was the blessing of freedom that now rested upon her shoulders. With an assumed name, a little bit of creative disguise (her father would have called it dress-up) and no one to look for her, who knew what sort of life she might lead? She could be any of the things her father had promised her, and more still that he hadn’t. The thought of a simple life was not a bad one; she could be happy as a librarian, or an apothecary, or even a farmhand. Work did not shame her anywhere as much as parading around in noble garb looking down her nose at the masses. Now, divested of her entire childhood and its tangible memories, she was nobody and everybody all at once. Nobody had to know of her failure to marry Armer. Nobody had to know of her lying, selfish witch of a grandmother. They could know her, and perhaps even love her, for who she was.
She had thought that the world had conspired to teach her one of its greatest lessons that night: that dreams were for children, and that she was no longer the child she still felt like in her heart. However, the giant man had somehow taken with him all the chaos and drama that swept the intellect from her mind and left her little more than a slave to her emotions. Now she could think, and thinking was what all the heroines she had ever read about did first, and best. Her dreams still lay in tatters, just as her fancy dress did, but perhaps what she needed went beyond dreams in the first place. She could not spend her time dreaming of rescue now; there was no need. Now came learning to live again in a world without dreams; it was a place she felt she had never seen before.
Gathering up her filthy and torn skirts, Melody began to make her slow way out of the forest; at least she thought she might, if she continued in the same direction for long enough. She was still too innocent to find her way back to the city she was born in, but sanity dictated that something had to lay in whatever direction she chose. She would find the nearest road, keep to it, and soon, she would find a place to begin her transformation into something other than Melody Morrist, the hero’s daughter. Inside, she would never be anything more; but it was time to see what the outside could be, if she let it.
As for the strange giant of a man… she would have to write it off as insanity, if she wanted to get anywhere in the long run. She knew that she would have to find the answers about him inside herself at some point, but to dwell on it now was to risk looking inward at a time when she needed first and foremost to look outward.
At worst, he was an apparition sent by her grandmother to bolster her flight. At best, he was an angel, sent by her father to guide her on her way. Whatever he was, he had set her feet upon the path of life, and she could only thank him for that.
Category: Liar's Dice (Yellow) |
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