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  • #4954
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Aunt Idle:

      Bert tells me it’s Christmas day today.  Christmas! I just looked at him blankly when he told me, trying to bring to mind what it used to be like. I can’t remember the last time Christmas was normal. Probably around fifteen years ago, just before the six years of fires started. It’s a wonder we survived, but we did. Even Mater.  God knows how old she is now, maybe Bert knows. He’s the one trying to keep track of the passing of time.   I don’t know what for, he’s well past his sell by date, but seems to cling on no matter what, like Mater. And me I suppose.

      We lost contact with the outside world over ten years ago (so Bert tells me, I wouldn’t know how long it was).  It was all very strange at first but it’s amazing what you can get used to.  Once you get over expecting it to go back to normal, that is.  It took us a long time to give up on the idea of going back to normal.  But once you do, it changes your perspective.

      But don’t get me wrong, it hasn’t been all bad.  We haven’t heard anything of the twins, not for a good ten years or more (you’d have to ask Bert how long) but I hear their voices in my head sometimes, and dream of them.  In my dreams they’re always on the water, on a big flat raft boat.  I love it when I dream of them and see all that water. Don’t ask me how, but I know they’re alright.

      Anyway like I said, it hasn’t been all bad. Vulture meat is pretty tasty if you cook it well.  The vultures did alright with it all, the sky was black with them at times, right after the droughts and the fires. But we don’t eat much these days, funny how you get used to that, too.  We grow mushrooms down in the old mines (Bert’s idea, I don’t know what we’d do without him).  And when the rains came, they were plentiful. More rain than we’d ever seen here.

      Well I could go on, but like I said, it’s Christmas day according to Bert.  I intend to sit on the porch and try and bring Prune and Devan and the twins to mind and see if I can send them a message.

      Prune’s been back to see us once (you’d have to ask Bert when it was).  She was on some kind of land sailing contraption, no good asking me what was powering the thing, there’s been no normal fuel for a good long time, none that’s come our way. Any time anyone comes (which is seldom) they come on camels or horses. One young family came passing through on a cart pulled by a cow once.  But Prune came wafting in on some clever thing I’d never seen the likes of before.  She didn’t stay long, she was going back to China, she said.  It was all very different there, she said. Not all back to the dark ages like here, that’s what she said.  But then, we were here in the first place because we liked a quiet simple life. Weren’t we? Hard to remember.

      #4867

      In reply to: The Stories So Near

      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        As it happens…

        POP-IN THREAD (Maeve, Lucinda, Shawn-Paul, Jerk, [Granola])

        Maeve and Shawn-Paul have left the Inn in Australia to travel to Tikfijikoo. What they are still doing there is anybody’s guess. Might have do with dolls, and rolling with it.

        In Canada, Lucinda has enrolled in a creative fiction course, and is doing progress… of sorts.

        Granola managed to escape the red crystal she was trapped in, after it cracked enough due to the pull of her friends’ memories.

        FLYING FISH INN THREAD (Mater/Finly, Idle/Coriander/Clove, Devan, Prune, [Tiku])

        The Inn is back to its normal routine, after the bout of flu & collective black-out.

        Connie and Hilda have come out of the mines.

        The others, we don’t know.

        DOLINE THREAD (Arona, Sanso/Lottie, Ugo, Albie)

        In the Doline, Arona has reunited with Vincentius, but is not ready for a family life of commitments.

        NEWSREEL THREAD (Ms Bossy, Hilda/Connie, Sophie, Ricardo)

        Sharon, Gloria and Mavis, are undergoing some cool fun in the cryochambers for beauty treatments.

        Ms Bossy & Ricardo are speechless. Literally.

        LIZ THREAD (Finnley, Liz, Roberto, Godfrey)

        There’s always something happening. Listing it is not the problem, but keeping track is.

        DRAGONHEARTWOOD THREAD (Glynnis, Eleri, Fox/Gorrash, Rukshan)

        Rukshan is in the doldrums of the land of Giants’, an unexplored parallel dimension.
        Gorrash has started to crystallize back to life, but nobody noticed yet.

        Cackletown & the reSurgence (Bea, Ed Steam & Surge team, etc.)

        Ed is back to the Cackletown dimension after some reconnaissance job on the whole dolls story interference. Might have spooked Maeve a little, but given the lack of anything surgey, have sort of closed this case and gone back to HQ.

        #4859
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          There was a lotto think about, and Lucinda was hard at it. At least she was hard at it until she noticed the typo. She kept forgetting about the lottery tickets. This pleased her because she’d heard a popular oracle say that forgetting about it was a good sign of winning.

          She imagined Helper Effy’s wise and patient (if a trifle scornful) voice asking her if a lottery win would help her writing.

          It was a good question.

          #4854
          F LoveF Love
          Participant

            “Nothing injured here,” said Agent X brushing himself down. “What is your status, Agent V?”

            “Hunky dory.” She extricated her tee shirt from a branch and inspected a deep red scrape on her arm. Her eyes circled the small clearing in which they had landed. If landed isn’t too grand a word.

            “Lots of trees,” she said.

            Agent X started heading towards a particularly dense area of bush. “This way to destination D,” he said brightly. “No time to lose.”

            I wonder what I ever saw in him,” mused V. Although he does have quite a nice butt.

            They had only trekked a few hundred meters when Agent X stopped abruptly. “Shush,” he whispered, holding his finger to his lips. “Do you hear something?”

            #4844

            “Better,” said Helper Effie. “I think it best not to attempt a sex scene too early on in your writing development. A most advanced skill. I did have one pupil … well you will have heard of her … the award winning writer, Finnley Moose? She wrote the most skilled sex scenes. Incredibly moving and … emotionally raw. The best sex scenes I have ever come across in a new writer.”

            She smiled kindly at Lucinda. “I don’t expect you to all be Finnleys. Keep up the good effort.”

            #4826

            Aunt Idle:

            It was good of them to do it I suppose, but you know me and new contraptions, it’s hard to summon up the courage to deal with a new one, no matter how seemingly simple it might be to a mind more attuned to that sort of thing. There were a couple of glaring spelling mistakes the last time I used it, that I know I couldn’t possibly have made, so I suspect the damn thing has gremlins, like all these contraptions seem to have. Always doing inexplicable things.

            At first I was worried about those two women who hadn’t come back out of the old mine yet, and cursed old Sanso for blinking right out like that, but I had the feeling that Sanso was on the case and not to worry. What could I do about it anyway? I reckon one day we’ll hear the story, one way or another.

            I’ve had enough to think about here with Mater’s latest drama.

            #4824
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              The creative writing course teacher, or “Helper” as they liked to call themselves to avoid any suggestion of hierarchy, was an arresting looking woman of indeterminate age and the most extraordinary red beehive hair do. The colour and style of it, and the aplomb with which Helper Effy carried it off, distracted Lucinda sufficiently during the first part of the lesson that she heard none of it.

              At one point Helper Effy glared at her, and Lucinda quickly averted her gaze, realizing her mindless gaping stare had been noticed. She closed her eyes to better pay attention.

              “What’s the first major confrontation, or action, or dramatic event in your novel that comes to your mind?” the Helper was asking. “Why? Because if it is the first thing you think of, then it’s your chimney poking through the hardpan.”

              Not quite sure what a hardpan was, Lucinda never the less felt she’d got the gist of the thing, and hoped she wouldn’t be too distracted by the question of the hardpan.

              #4811

              A red leaf fell on the nose of the biggest gargoyle and Fox stopped his rehearsal. It had been exhausting and he didn’t remember why on earth he was doing that. He also didn’t remember how long he had been speaking in front of the Gargoyles, maybe he drank the wrong potion in the morning. Glynis had given him a potion especially made for him to calm his anxiety and help him solve a few energy blockages from childhood, or in his case, cubhood.

              One of the baby snoots giggled behind the back of the shrieking gargoyle.
              “You don’t mess with me, little…” He found himself lacking the creativity to find any insult the could understand. It was no use cursing the little rainbow creatures, they didn’t seem to care. Fox suspected it was not because of a lack of intelligence but simply because they didn’t view life, or anything, as a problem. He took note that he should get some inspiration from that.

              “What were you doing, uncle Fox?” asked Olliver.
              Fox opened his eyes wide. The boy seemed taller everyday and Fox had to look up to actually meet his eyes.
              “Will you never stop to grow?” he asked with a little resentment.
              “Well…” the boy started with his breaking voice.
              “Where were you,” asked Fox. “I thought you had left with Rukshan.” In a way Fox was relieved that it was not the case and it soothed a little the pain caused by the sudden departure of the Fae.

              “Oh! Teleporting here and there,” said the boy, considering adding some semi-truth about going to school.
              An idea sprouted in Fox’s mind. It was too tiny for him to know what it was but his unconscious mind was already working about a plan to catch up with Rukshan, connecting the bits and pieces left by the Fae in his tales to the children and his innocuous comments.
              “What do you think about… having some dinner,” he said not yet able to formulate in his imagination that he could even go on an adventure with Olliver.

              #4810

              Nurse Trassie sniffed the rubbish can. A day or two at most. The traces were not fresh, but neither were her preys. Yet, there was something unmistakable about the trail the three of them left in their wake.
              The pharmacist had been reluctant at first to share information, but a well-placed arm wrench extracted the truth out of him very efficiently. Those misbehaving lying eloping people needed to be corrected.
              “Yes, yes, I remember them three, very nice ladies!” he said in pleading tones. “They didn’t say where they lived, pleaase! But they were late for their plane!”
              “To where?!” Nurse Trassie was losing patience as much as the plot, and it made her angry.
              “To Finland I think, they were complaining about the cold, and they bought lip balm, and and…”
              Nurse Trassie had heard enough, she could track them through the flight agencies. How these three had managed to take a flight out of the country was a surprise. They’d surely had help.

              She growled to herself “I’m not going to be bested by these decrepit slovens, mark my words. I’ll bring them back to the nursing home by the rest of their hair if I have to!”

              #4809

              The downward climb had taken what felt like days. The more he went, the darkest it was even the stars at his feet were now swallowed in obliviating darkness.

              Rukshan felt like abandoning at times, but pressed on and continued, down and down as he rose above clouds.

              The ancient energies that had shaped this topsy-turvy passage spiraling around the fence of the heartwoods wouldn’t have done something of that magnitude and let it unfinished. It was calling for an exploration, while at the same time protecting itself from mere wanderers, the kind with lack of imagination or endurance.
              His mind reminded him of old tales that spoke of sacrificing to the trees for knowledge and passage, but it was surely meant as a metaphor. Hanging upside down for hours was probably in itself a form of sacrifice.

              He reached to his pouch for a drink of sour milk, when he suddenly realized that the gravity had turned, and the pouch was no longer floating above his head. With the darkness and the lack of landmarks, he’d failed to notice when this happened.

              It surely meant he’d crossed an invisible barrier, and was now journeying inside another plan, deeper down. Ground couldn’t be far now. He took a pearl off one of his braids, and threw it. Then he looked at the darkness beneath his feet with intent to discern the faintest sounds. Quickly enough, the pearl gave back a ricocheting sound, clean and echoing slightly against what seemed to be moist stones. Indeed ground was there, where once the sky was.

              Maybe the final test was a leap of faith. Or maybe it was just to patiently complete the climb. A few more steps, and he would be there. A few more steps.

              #4807
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                I am Trebuchet and they don’t fool me with their filo socks sickle twaddle. I heard a tale on one of my trips (trips is my thing, trips and tales, not to be confused with tripping over a tail, or stripping a trail), a tale with a moral, that is to say the tale included a mention of shooting the messenger, loosely translated as slapping the host. The lack of finesse and discernment is astounding in these parts, these parts being, for want of a better expression, my home base.

                #4806

                “Speaking of philosophical …” said Godfrey

                “Were we? Were we REALLY speaking of philosophical? Or were we talking about that … that … DERELINQUANT, Finnley. And SHE is anything BUT philosophical!”

                “I was speaking of philosophical … it reminded me of something I read recently … about the great philoosopher, Lemone, who as we know is the epitome of philosophicalness. The gold standard, if you will. It seems he has had a change of heart recently.”

                Liz wiped beads of nervous sweat off her forehead and sat down. “Do tell,” she said. “Perhaps he will soothe my troubled and long suffering soul.”

                “He has derogated his previous sayings as rubbish and issued a public apology. ‘Sorry about the nonsense comments,’ he is reputed to have said.”

                “Beautiful,” said Liz shaking her head in wonderment. “So succinct and humble. The man is a genius.”

                #4791

                Once he’d finished to tell the story, and let the kids go back to the cottage for the night, Rukshan’s likeness started to vanish from the place, and his consciousness slowly returned to the place where his actual body was before projecting.

                Being closer to the Sacred Forest enhanced his capacities, and where before he could just do sneak peeks through minutes of remote viewing, he could now somehow project a full body illusion to his friends. He’d been surprised that Fox didn’t seem to notice at all that he wasn’t truly there. His senses were probably too distracted by the smells of food and chickens.

                He’d wanted to check on his friends, and make sure they were alright, but it seemed his path ahead was his own. He realized that the finishing of the loo was not his own path, and there was no point for him to wait for the return of the carpenter. That work was in more capable hands with Glynis and her magic.

                His stomach made an indiscreet rumbling noise. It was not like him to be worried about food, but he’d gone for hours without much to eat. He looked at his sheepskin, and the milk in it had finally curdled. He took a sip of the whey, and found it refreshing. There wouldn’t be goats to milk in this part of the Forest, as they favored the sharp cliffs of the opposite site. This and a collection of dried roots would have to do until… the other side.

                To find the entrance wasn’t too difficult, once you understood the directions offered by the old map he’d recovered.

                He was on the inner side of the ringed protective enclosures, so now, all he needed was to get into the inner sanctum of the Heartwood Forest, who would surely resist and block his path in different ways.

                “The Forest is a mandala of your true nature…”

                He turned around. Surprised to see Kumihimo there.

                “Don’t look surprised Fae, you’re not the only one who knows these parlor tricks.” She giggled like a young girl.

                “of my nature?” Rukshan asked.

                “Oh well, of yours, and anybody’s for that matter. It’s all One you, see. The way you see it, it represents yourself. But it would be true for anybody, there aren’t any differences really, only in the one who sees.”

                She reappeared behind his back, making him turn around. “So tell me,” she said “what do you see here?”

                “It’s where the oldest and strongest trees have hardened, it’s like a fence, and a… a memory?”

                “Interesting.” She said “What you say is true, it’s memory, but it’s not dead like you seem to imply. It’s hardened, but very much alive. Like stone is alive. The Giants understood that. And what are you looking for?”

                “An entrance, I guess. A weak spot, a crack, a wedge?”

                “And why would you need that? What if the heart was the staircase itself? What if in was out and down was up?”

                Rukshan had barely time to mouth “thank you” while the likeness of the Braid Seer floated away. She’d helped him figure out the entrance. He touched one of the ring of the hard charred trees. They were pressed together, all clomped in a dense and large enclosure virtually impossible to penetrate. His other memories told him the way was inside, but his old memories were misleading.
                Branches were extending from the trunks, some high and inaccessible, hiding the vision of the starry sky, some low, nearly indistinguishable from old gnarled roots. If you looked closely, you could see the branches whirring around like… Archimedes Screw. A staircase?

                He jumped on a branch at his level, which barely registered his weight. The branch was dense and very slick, polished by the weathering of the elements, with the feel of an old leather. He almost lost his balance and scrapped his hands between the thumb and the index.

                “Down is up?”

                He spun around the branch, his legs wrapped around the branch. He expected his backpack to drag him towards the floor, but strangely, even if from his upside-down perspective, it was floating above him, it was as if it was weightless.

                He decided to take a chance. Slowly, he hoisted himself towards his floating bag, and instead of falling, it was as though the branch was his ground. Now instead of a spiral staircase around the trees leading to heavens, it was the other side of the staircase that spiraled downwards to the starry night.

                With his sheepskin and back still hovering, he started to climb down the branches towards the Giants’ land.

                #4788
                ÉricÉric
                Keymaster

                  “Tikfijikoo? I’ve never heard of an island called Tikfijikoo…” Shawn-Paul said once they were seated in the airplane.

                  “Really?” Maeve was surprised. “My childhood was full of stories that happened in that island.”
                  She was distracted though. She was sure she’d seen the man in black follow them through the customs and sneak into the plane. She had a doubt though, how could he have followed, the planed seemed so completely packed, she even wondered how Fergus had managed to get them tickets during what was surely peak season.

                  It’s probably all in your mind… she said to herself.

                  “What did you say?” Shawn-Paul inquired, fingers full of salt and a grin on his face after a violent struggle with the little bag of roasted pistachios the attendant had given him.

                  “I said, you better rest. The trip is long, and you won’t sleep much in the next plane to the island. It’s not going to be a big and comfy plane, I can tell you.”

                  #4785
                  ÉricÉric
                  Keymaster

                    Not knowing what to do with the powder, Jerk pondered for a moment, then recalled a tradition from India that he’d seen on a documentary or in a magazine; taking the blue sand, he started to pour it on the ground to draw a rangoli in the shape of a feather. He clearly wasn’t very experienced at sandpainting, and the drawing looked more like a stick in an old worn sock, but he was glad that it could illuminate somehow the bland and cold fake marble at the entrance of the mall.

                    :fleuron2:

                    Granola was starting to get anxious in her red crystal. It wasn’t very comfortable. She thought she could just adjust her mental size to make it more spacious, but it was automatically adjusting. She was starting to feel desperate when she noticed a blue thing with the shape of a deflated condom glowing on one of the sides of the crystal.
                    The imprint of a magical act of grace she could hear vibrating. The vibration was slow and steady. She could guess she needed two, or maybe three, more of these symbols to resonate properly and break the crystal open.

                    #4777
                    prUneprUne
                    Participant

                      That was a first. I had no idea what just happened. And believe me, this girl has seen some serious hanky-panky going ‘round here. Starting with Aunt Idle and her hustling and lascivious seducing of the Middle Eastern pirate cosplayer we had as guest.
                      But of course, that was nothing compared to how glamorous Mater looked in her red gabardine.
                      Anyway, something odd happened, like everyone was zapped in a torpor after the Fergus guy arrived. We were all expecting a sort of big reveal, and he did drop some incoherent clues, nothing truly worth the wait sorry to say, so we all went upstairs to sleep.

                      Blame it on the spiced lizard meat maybe, but I can’t figure what happened after that until I woke up. Everyone this morning was playing it by ear, as if everything was normal. But people are missing. Fergus and his motorbike, and the scarf girl with the young boy and their cat. Maybe others, I’ve lost count, and I’m done putting sticky notes for Idle (funny she insists being called that by the way… Maybe a side-effect of her medications).

                      There was an Italian corvette parked outside, all black & white. It arrived during the night, it woke me up when it arrived, but I went back to sleep I think. I wonder if those are new tourist guests. The Canadian guests were a bit in alarm, especially after the Fergus reveals.

                      Mater would tell me, “there is no cause for worry dear, mark my words, in an hour or less, it will all settle back down to the usual deadly boring as usual business.”

                      I think that planned family time was a bit too much anyway. Or too little. Devan hardly spent an hour with us, he’s too obsessed with his lost treasure conspiracies. He’ll be doing great with Dodo and her friends from the journal. I think they all enlisted Bert for a trip to the mines by the way. For all the good it’ll do everyone to try to unearth old secrets. Might give Mater a serious heart attack, for real this time.

                      As for me, I’ve had enough. I’m packing my bags and leaving with the first bus back to the Academy. There’s a mission to Mars to conquer.

                      #4774

                      “I think we’d better go chase the giant,” said Fox. Rukshan looked at him, his right eyebrow looking like an elevated archway. “I mean, I heard Mr Minn’s nephew has been delayed and we have nothing better to do anyway. Glynis and the boys should be ok now that Mooriel is gone.”
                      “You’re assuming a lot of things. Like for example the fact that Glynis won’t mind staying and taking care of the cottage and the boys. Not to mention Eleri, who’s been too silent recently, she must be up to something. Anyway. Let’s just ask everybody what they think want.”
                      “Are you sure?” asked Fox. He was thinking that a short trip with his friend would be a nice change from the indoor life. It’s been too long a stay for him who had been living in the woods for so long before he met his friends. And Glynis was always too generous with appointing the house chores. A character trait that had only increased recently with Muriel’s long stay. “Maybe we can ask Margoritt to come back.”
                      “I’m sure she has better things to do, and better company in the city.” Rukshan chortled as if he had said something funny.
                      “Well, let’s ask Glynis,” said Fox who didn’t quite understand the hidden meaning.

                      “Oh! I would have loved to see giants,” said Glynis. “Unfortunately I have started a class for the forest birds, and it’s a buzz. I’m teaching them to be a choir for the upcoming town festival.”
                      “That’s too bad,” said Fox. “We would have loved to have you with us,” trying to ignore Rukshan’s throat clearing.
                      “But ask Eleri, and the boys. I would be totally thrilled if you could take care of them for a while. I’ve been doing all the work around lately and I need a little time of my own, if you know what I mean. I’m sure they’ll all love to see giants.”

                      #4768

                      Probably afraid to catch the floo, Muriel had packed in a jiffy, and left the place without saying much more than a few admonitions.

                      Fox winked at Glynis. “Good job at faking it! You should have done it a long time back. I still wonder how you managed to get all the hues right in the snotting potion. Look at those greens!”

                      Glynis atchooed some more, in case Muriel was still within earshot, then laughed heartily. It was good to laugh. She disliked the saying that you always laugh at the expense of someone, but in that case it felt splendid. Muriel had been such a bag of chips on her shoulders, with her moaning and complaining and her hardly lifting a finger.

                      After all the belly laughing was done, and some more for good measure, she looked at Fox’s wrinkled nose, and laughed some more: “the loo is still in a dire situation though!”

                      He tittered jollily, hooting his reply “For sure! All the purple cabbage you fed that harpy didn’t help!”

                      #4767
                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        Jerk was back at the mall from a week’s holiday break. He was surprised to notice the moderation queue to be almost empty. Usually, he would have found AT LEAST three comments a day to moderate.

                        “Well, pity that.” he said, sipping his cold peppermint tea. “Summer is a slow season.”

                        All his neighbours seemed still gone to some far away places, the residential building was almost empty, if not for the Pekinese dog regularly peeing in front of Lucinda’s door. He’d heard it was probably the stress of his owner being gone for so long. Lucinda didn’t seem to mind the piss stench —her mopping was overall quite modest.

                        Good thing there was a misplaced comment. In two clicks, it was promptly rethreaded to the proper place. Of course the author of said comment would have argued with the whole logic, but she probably wouldn’t notice.

                        #4764

                        Aunt Idle:

                        I couldn’t offer Sanso a drink, as there wasn’t a drop of anything in my room, so I sent him down to the dining room to get a bottle of gin, and a couple of glasses of ice. I was a bit reluctant to let him out of my bedroom at such an early stage of the proceedings, but felt he was a man of his word when he assured me (with an engaging twinkle) that of course he’d be back, in just two shakes of a mongooses tail. Odd expression if you ask me, but then, where does he come from? Hard to say. He had a slight accent, but it was impossible to pin down to a location, and it had a changeable quality, too.

                        He wasn’t gone long, and said that the only person who’d seen him was Prune, but that was inevitable, he said. That kid sees everything! She’d be a fount of valuable information, if she didn’t put such a unique spin on everything.

                        I sat on the bed, and he sat in the wicker chair by the window, and after we’d clunked glasses and said cheers, he came right out and asked me what my mission was. Well! Mission? I asked. I’d never really thought about it in terms of a mission. Then a funny thing happened. I could hear myself speaking but hadn’t thought about what to say, you know how it is sometimes.

                        I said, “my mission is a glorious infinite wandering, threading multicoloured silken skeins of clues and riddles, people and places, weaving them in and out of time and to each other…”

                        Sanso laughed. “He said “That’s my mission, too!” and we raised our glasses in honour of that, and then he got serious. No, not like that. I mean, he started going on about the mines, and how we really had no time to lose because there were two daft tarts in extreme danger down there, and they needed rescuing. I rolled my eyes as you can imagine. I’d already started semi reclining in anticipation.

                        “It’ll be fun,” he said.

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