The Merlin

Those of the court not genuinely charmed by the Merlin child learned swiftly to affect it, for the queen (in a complete reversal of her initial reaction) was utterly delighted by her mortal fosterling, and took a dim view of anyone not equally enamored.

Of course, some of the fae were genuinely taken with him, if only in an abstract sense. It had been several centuries since the last fosterling, and most had forgotten what it was like to have one around. They discovered that watching a mortal child go through the same stages of development a fae child maneuvered became a more compelling pastime once you understood that this child would not have all of eternity to develop and hone its skills. This realization made them more eager to be involved in whatever the little Merlin child was getting up to, and much, much more eager to give him gifts and teach him things (normally a fae child would not be paid any mind until at least its third or fourth decade). After all, one never knew when a mortal might accidently get itself killed (or, more ghastly still, die of old age) so if one wanted the amusement of watching it perform one’s personal favorite bit of magic, one had best strike while the proverbial iron was hot.

Of course, the Merlin child’s lifespan was not to be quite so short as the courtiers feared. They did not realize that one of the curious effects of a mortal child reared on a fae diet is that it both accelerates and slows his maturation. Mentally he developed more quickly than his mortal peers- but physically the aging process was slowed. Less so in his childhood and early youth (although to look at him at fourteen was to see a child of eight) but quite dramatically as he entered the maturation of adulthood.

At any rate, the excessive attention from the members of the court is why, when his few fae peers were still amusing themselves with songs and games in the nursery, the Merlin child was not only proficient at two different types of divination (augury and tea leaves), could speak and understand three different dialects (high tongue, low tongue, and merish) but could also change himself into no less than five different animals (fish, deer, fox, hare, and beetle- although most found this last shape to be more comical than practical). He even mastered the glamour before he was six, and used it to make his offensively pink skin appear a more appealing green (this in honor of his foster-father, whom he greatly admired).

The Cuckoo

"Take it away. I don't want it."

The maidservant did not respond to her mistress's words, nor even her tone, which was perhaps the more frightening of the two. Instead she continued to kneel, holding the tightly swaddled infant in her outstretched arms like an offering.

"Take. It. Away."

"Darling," the king consort's voice was soothing. "Won't you just look at it?"

"I don't need to look at it. I already know it's a filthy pink horror."

"Oh I don't know," said the king consort, cocking his head to one side. "I think it might be rather sweet, once you get past the odd color. And the strange proportions. Might even be lovable." The queen gasped as though struck.

"How dare you! How dare you turn your back on our son? Have you no feelings at all?" and she began to weep. The king consort sighed and wrapped an arm around her.

"My cherished one, of course I have not turned my back on our son. But you have always known that our heir must be sent to the iron lands to be fostered-"

"Fostered? Raised! Raised by those ugly barbarians. Oh I can't bear it..."

"You can and you will," his voice became stern. "You survived it, and so shall he. And he will be the stronger for it,"

"But... it was different then... easier... I was lucky..."

"It was not. And yes, perhaps you were lucky, but our son will be, too. Do we not have half a legion watching over him until he is of age? And in the meantime we will raise this human child as our own, so that when the time comes we will have a strong advocate amongst the mortals. It's been far too long since we've had one."

"I hate it," she insisted.

"You can't hate it- you haven't even looked at it. Oolynn, bring the child here."

The maidservant did as she was told, and carefully lay the child in the king-consort's arms. The baby was sleeping soundly, although he had managed to worm both hands out of the swaddle to ball up at his mouth.

"There now, darling. Just hold him for a moment,"

"I won't," she closed her eyes and turned her face away. No one could sulk so gorgeously as the queen.

"Lady you will," his tone brooked no argument, and although his wife jutted forward her delicate chin, she also held out her arms.

"Fine. I'll hold it for one minute, and then it's off to the nursery. If we have to raise it, let it be raised by the servants; I don't care if I never see the wretched thing again."

The king-consort transferred his bundle to her, and without thinking she automatically brought it close to her breast as she would her own son. The tiny creature stirred, then began to root.

"Oh," she breathed, watching him in fascination. "Oh, oh husband! See how clever he is! He knows I can feed him!"

Oolyn wisely refrained from rolling her eyes at the infant's "cleverness": her mistress might be cunning and ruthless when it came to the ruling of her turbulent kingdom, but she could be painfully ignorant on domestic matters.

"He's not so bad at all, is he?" asked the queen, running an elegant finger over a strange, rounded ear. "He might be pink, but that's not so bad... our birds are pink when they're born, are they not?"

"They are, my love. Pink and rather hideous. But they grow up to be swift and strong, and very clever. Very useful."

"My funny little baby bird," she crooned. "I think I shall call you... Merlin."

(Respite)

Remnant

when i die
i know you will come for me

you will stand on my grave
touch your horn to the stone
and summon my spirit back up
out of the cold black earth

we will face one another
two impossible beings
and i will know you
and you will know me
tho' we never saw one another in life

and you will kneel just a little
just enough for me to pull myself up
onto your pale broad back-
and then you will run

together we will race
down the convoluted pathways
carved by my memories
through mercurial time
onward and backward we'll rush
until we reach the moment
when i stopped believing in you

we will kiss the girl that i was
and she will shiver
touch her hand to her cheek
and turn to look for us
because our kiss will restore her faith-

but we will be long gone
two old friends riding off
into the sunrise of eternity

(Remnant)

Internet Famous (With Digressions Galore!)

Sooo... I had my first brush with internet fame today. I mean, my first brush with a total stranger saying to me, "Oh! I recognize you from the internet!", as opposed to me looking and looking until I find myself on a friend's Wikipedia page.

It started, as so many of my interactions with people out in the world do, with my tattoos. Specifically with my heart-tree tattoo:

(man my hair was long when I got that- although to be fair it's getting there again...)

Nate and I were at Whole Paycheck- er, I mean, Foods- picking up some fish for dinner (although again, in the interest of fairness, the reason we get our fish there is because it's actually less expensive than other places we've been known to frequent, so perhaps the ol' "paycheck" moniker isn't entirely appropriate). Anyway, as we were checking out the girl bagging our stuff said something I didn't hear and gestured to my tattoo, so I put on my "interacting with people who want to talk about my ink" face (ie, a smile) and nodded and gave the ubiquitous "Thanks!" (because usually what they are saying is a compliment). And then her eyes narrowed and I got my first, "Wait, I know you from the internet..." interaction. Because apparently my design is one that pops up for people looking to design tree tattoos (which I'm sure can be directly linked to my interaction with the lovely Erika Moen at Stumptown Comics Fest in '07, and her subsequent Flickr post.) So that's pretty flattering that my design has such a powerful resonance for so many people. And a good sign for my pipe-dream career as a tattoo artist.

::sigh:: Someday.

But perhaps you'd like to hear the story behind that tattoo? In my experience random strangers often do, so hopefully it is not too conceited of me to think that those few of you who read this would, as well. Generally I tell those random strangers that it has to do with internal and external validation for self and ego, respectively (as well as where we've been and where we're going and family and friends, etc etc) but the truth is I only worked those things out after the fact. The real truth is that my heart-tree tattoo didn't start out as any of those things.

Do you know how sometimes you get a song stuck in your head? Well, when you're an artist sometimes you get a doodle stuck in your head. That's what happened to me back in 2007. I started drawing sprouting hearts, all sorts of variations of sprouting hearts, including flowers and eventually trees. I drew that damn heat-tree over and over again in my sketchbooks, on work documents, and even myself.

But wait- further digression time.

Once upon a time I was a cutter. I know, I know- what female amongst us was not? I'm not saying this to be all, "Oh, shocking and unique reveal!" but rather to explain that once upon a time I, like so many other emotionally unhealthy people have done, would inflict physical pain on myself in an attempt to dull the psychic pain I was experiencing. This was primarily in high-school, with the occasional relapse in college. Thanks to various factors and people, I got to a point where I no longer did that- but that did not erase the urge to do it. And so as a way to deal with the urge, I began drawing on myself instead. That way I still got the intense focus of making marks, but I was creating something beautiful instead of hurting myself.

So. That night in 2007- I had that urge to cut myself, but I did not. Instead I started tracing the veins on the inside of my arm with a sharpie. And then I thought to myself, "Huh, that looks like my little tree design," so I turned it into that. And I stared at it and I thought, "That's really just... perfect." And the depression sort of evaporated and was replaced with the excitement of having found my Next Tattoo.

And do you know? I haven't had the urge to cut since.

Fumble

There must be something in the Southern Air that especially nourishes whatever it is in humans that leads them toward worship and devotion. Something that compels them to lay all their faith and energy upon a single cause.

I am referring, of course, to college football.

Yes, college football (as much of a religion around here as any of the myriad manifestations of Protestantism), that holy of holies which conveniently calls its followers to mass on Saturday rather than Sunday. Of the two holy rival houses, my families claim allegiance to the University of Alabama (Roll Tide Roll!), which for the past couple of years has been pretty rewarding in terms of bragging rights.

But today, gentle readers, all that came crashing down.

Now, you have to understand that I am not, as the majority of people in these parts tend to measure these things, a particularly good football fan. I have only come to appreciate the game over the past three seasons, so my grasp of the intricacies is still somewhat shakey, and my invented sports vernacular has been known to send a room into spasms of hilarity. Furthermore, I am the kind of person who just gets a kick out of seeing a well-executed play, no matter what color jersey the executor is wearing. I also am the kind of person who wants the other team to play well- because I feel it means more for us to win against a team that is not making a bunch of mistakes. And, perhaps worst of all, I am the kind of person who holds no animosity toward our traditional rival, Auburn- in fact I will root for them every day of the year save one (that being the Iron Bowl). In short, I am the kind of person who is a fan of an excellent game rather than the idea of an immaculate team- which garners me a lot of dirty looks from people more devoted than I.

My husband, on the other hand, tends to get... well, emotionally involved might be understating it, but it works. Although his views on Auburn mirror mine, he tends to get so wrapped up in an oridnary game that if our team is performing poorly he has to leave the room. (This being an exponential improvement over a couple years ago, where he would stay in the room and become so enraged I'd fear for his heart). His father and at least one of his brothers are the same way, so I'm pretty sure there's some nature/nuture stuff going on there. Of course I, too, get aggravated when we aren't playing well, but I am the sort of fan who retains faith to the bitter end that there might be a turn-around... which means that when it came right down to the final four minutes of today's game (we were down fourteen points) it was just me and my sister-in-law left in the living room at my in-law's house.

My faith was not rewarded with victory in this instance, but I don't mind. I love my team nonetheless (and I do not envy them the tongue-lashing Coach Saban is sure to be unleashing). And as it turns out, Nathan got to watch a much more emotionally satisfying game, anyway:

(Catch)

Mini Wars of Autumn

It has apparently reached that time of year in which Tiny Crawling Things believe that moving into my house is probably their best available Course of Action. Needless to say, I disagree with them; I believe their best available Course of Action is to stay outside and friggin' freeze to death.

And so begin the Mini Wars of Autumn, wherein they fling their unending ranks against my fortifications, and I ruthlessly slaughter them in ones, twos, and colonies. Books, shoes, the brute force of my thumb- whatever comes easiest in the moment. And still they come.

I'm investing in a new weapon tomorrow- peppermint oil. Supposedly it keeps ants away, without doing any harm to cats. We shall see. It will certainly be the best-smelling defense I've ever mounted.

Staying

While browsing NPR the other day I came across a review for a book called If I Stay (Forman). The concept was intriguing to me, so I picked it up from the library yesterday, and before bed I cracked it open to read a few chapters before going to sleep.

Um, yeah. Definitely stayed up waaaaay too late because I couldn't put it down. Definitely finished it in one sitting, which granted is not that difficult with a 200 page book, but is not what I was expecting to do at fifteen minutes 'til sleepy-times. I think that is a pretty good recommendation for a book, personally. (Also it is quite possible I cried.)

But back to the intriguing concept. To quote Publisher's Weekly: The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents' corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live.

I will not give away what Mia chooses, or why, but I will say that it made me think long and hard about what my choice would be in similar circumstances. There was a time (my early/mid teens) where I was utterly unafraid of death. It's not that I thought I was immortal or invincible, or that I had a free pass to heaven (I wasn't really a Christian even then), or anything like that- it's more like I just... didn't care. I didn't care one way or the other whether I was alive or dead. I wasn't going around looking for death, but I wasn't going out of my way to prevent it, either. (I remember one time looking over an edge and thinking that the only reason to be careful was that the drop wouldn't kill me.) As far as I was concerned, there was pretty much an equal draw to both- Mom on one side of Existence, Dad on the other (at that point in my development my brother didn't count as much as his own entity- which just goes to further illustrate how deeply stupid I was at that stage.)

I have things to live for, now, which I have to say is pretty nice. Of course the downside to that is that I now feel something akin to a fear of death. Although it's not really a fear of death per se- it's more like a sadness at leaving behind what I love. My Afterlife beliefs aren't exactly fixed (that's a subject for another post entirely), so I guess you could say there is a certain fear of the unknown... not that it will be bad (I really don't believe it will) just that I don't know what it will be. And I'm anal retentive and I like to have a plan, damn it

Anyway, in light of the fact that I now have this wonderful abundance of people and things to live for, reading If I Stay made me wonder how much of it I'd have to lose before I'd go back to that lack-of-fear. Obviously I have my mother's example that you can survive a life-mate's death, even be happen again. But then I think- she had children. She had responsibility. Would I bother, if I didn't have that responsibility? I think I probably would but... until you're faced with it, I guess you don't know. And if I were to lose him, and my mom, and my brother, and my best friends, etc. etc., all in one bizarre fell swoop- how much loss could I survive?

I sincerely hope I never have to find out the answer to that question.

Of course it helps that I have a certain amount of derision for suicide as the easy way out. It's quite possible that even if everyone I ever loved suddenly dropped dead I'd keep going from sheer stubborn pride.

(Here, have another photo of Chicago from my wandering life-mate.)


EDIT: You know what, after giving it even more thought, I'd have to say it's not a fear of death so much as a love of life. Yeah, that's what I meant.