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sat out in the rain, my trusty old TARDIS coffee mug that i only use when there are no clean mugs left pressed to my lips. listened to the rain falling in the blackness. asked of the darkness,
“trolley?”
she was a presence, nothing more. a feeling of green and growing, feathery plant matter and loamy earth. for a moment, it bothered me that i couldn’t really see her, only feel and hear her voice, so it seemed that she wriggled herself into a shape: a borzoi, her sacred beast, so white that she seemed to glow. and so she ghosted, a rare pastime for her, trotting around and seemingly enjoying herself. leaping up onto the porch railing, staring up into the blackness of the sky, where she seemed to speak soundlessly and gesture upwards. in that gesture i felt the presence of another goddess, the enormous orca matron of storms who i named Irelia, swimming with her thousand daughters through the current of rainclouds gathered above us.
we spoke of many things, me huddled in the center of the porch and she like one of her own statues, perched nimbly on the rail, graceful as a cat.
“what’s happened to the Toy Soldier, Trolley? i haven’t seen him in weeks.”
my love, how hard have you tried to seek him out?
“… not hard,” i admitted. “either he comes, or he doesn’t come, and i feel like a fake.”
you are afraid of failure.
“yeah, i guess i am. aren’t we all?”
she scratched at imaginary itches. it is something you must overcome.
“Trolley, what.. what is the question i want to ask, even.”
in response she made a play bow at my feet, mock-charged and licked at my face with her tongue. only you may know that, she said, with a hint of impish sarcasm.
“maybe the question is…. what is this feeling i have? this wrong feeling? is it just artistic frustration? i haven’t drawn properly in many days.”
her playful frisking stilled and she gazed at me with eyes that seemed at once ancient and brand new. you must make art. you are the Scion of Hiraeth. with that title comes a heavy burden. it is your purpose, to tell our stories.
“…like To Bluer Water?”
exactly like that. for that World to develop, you must take part in its development.
“why doesn’t Kyo know more than me about her own World? she’s the one who’s always helping me out with all this headspace theory stuff.”
my darling, she is the center of her own story in that World. not the World itself. she can only tell you that story. you must help as the Scion to bring it into being.
“i don’t like the idea of all this being something that i just… created,” i said, looking down into my coffee, as tiny droplets of rain plopped into it.
the long face turned to look directly into mine. she hopped down from the railing and padded close to me. but, darling, that is precisely what it is, she said into my ear, dog whiskers tickling the side of my face. you must embrace the unity of it all. they are you, you are they. that is the natural state of things.
we spoke of art, of ideas for depictions of her as she was now, the gleaming white borzoi, all long limbs and roman nose, but also those ephemeral coils of vines and ferns that wound around her body only sometimes, or maybe could only sometimes be seen. she playfully posed for an imaginary photo, sometimes the graceful desert dog mid-bound with a halo of green, sometimes a monstrous thing with twisted elongated fangs bursting from her mouth along with thorny tangles. roses, teeth, beast, they are all one to her.
“Trolley…” i started finally, the day’s anxiety about silly things weighing heavily on me. “what happens if i die before i finish telling all these stories?”
then, my love, she said softly, sadly, winding her gleaming body around me, tail whisking slowly in my face, then, the story will end.
it hurt, but i knew it was the simplest truth she could possibly give.
