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luminescentlyricist · 3 years

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♈ She's Losing Herself ♈

[ gore cw ]

Aradia scared most people, and she wasn't sure why. Sure, she had possessed a myriad of different forms, but she was still a troll. Over time, her identity had faded, and her sense of it as well had diminished into what she had become. She still saw herself as a ghost, a frog-sprite and a robot, regardless of how strong she felt that she was anything but. It was just how she had grasped onto her identity in the past, though she had none any more. As an extremely gifted Maid of Time - 'creator of time', so to speak - she would have liked to be able to manipulate and change things. She wanted to be able to turn back time and see herself for who she really had been. That was just what she thought she could do, however. To possess Retcon abilities was far beyond what she could ever comprehend.

Still she waited, ever-expectant, for her powers to come forth and give her more worth than she had ever been perceived with. Though she willingly used a slur against herself, deeming herself a rustblood, it didn't make her feel any better about herself. She made an effort to act in such aristocratic ways so that people would actually think higher of her, look beyond her burgundy colours. She was intelligent in her own right, and knew of the impending doom of her friends and fellow players. It confused her that she wasn't tied to the Doom aspect, due to her fascination with the apocalypse and such morbidities. For this reason, she was friends with Sollux, as the Captor held an extremely strong connection to that one in particular, and it wasn't just because of his bifurcation, despite the fact that he gained 'extra lives' with his two dream selves.

Aradia held no power in the scheme of things, and that's how it would stay. She made her efforts, but nothing she did - even speaking in the ways of more aristocratic highbloods - would make her any more significant. She loathed it. She loathed herself for it, and she reminded herself so consistently that she was nothing. Seeing one of her best friends become so well-known, so respected and loved by a highblood, the highestblood, it hurt. Hurt so much. There was little she could do about it, though, so she grew to resent the blood in her veins. She was calm about it, though, and never expressed that hatred to anyone. She never told a soul, even curling into herself when they'd ask how she was. She'd smile through it all, though the voices in her ears were screaming at her still.

The omens that guided her every movement were darkened by the future, a future that she only wished to bring to light. Why Aradia wasn't a Seer, either, was something that had evaded her knowledge for all of the time that she had been inside the game. She hadn't been able to research it, or adventure to take her mind off things, to explore the dark crypts she often liked. In one instance, one that she never spoke of, Vriska had asked her to make a map for a FLARPing adventure, to which Aradia happily obliged. She had taken a few days making the map, and the spiderlike troll had become impatient, but it was because she had ventured into another crypt and mapped it instead of just inventing something that seemed unrealistic. That was her only interaction with Vriska before Sgrub.

The Aries troll had already lost her lusus before the game, and she was losing herself as well. Her identity was being smothered and obscured by the moment, and that was something she could never have predicted even if she had been able to travel forward in time so easily. The timelines would never dictate this to her in such a way, the gripping and debilitating loneliness and loss she felt when she entered Sgrub. She no longer knew who she was, truly, and she was just floating from form to form on a whim so that she didn't feel quite so empty. She was grateful to those who had stuck by her side, and who had actually supported her through the mayhem. Those few who had not forgotten her, those few who remembered her for who she was before.

Aradia wasn't ready for the change, but it came.

She glared darkly at Equius with her new, shining eyes, disregarding the fact that he had made her a new body out of - almost - pure courtesy. She had not expected to have a new form, and she hardly desired such a change. She had been comfortable being aimless. Having no physical tethers, no true responsibilities. That was, responsibilities aside from preventing the death of her whole team and filling in one of the Cardinal Aspects. Equius Zahhak was a whole other story, one that she didn't want to tell anybody. Although she knew he meant well, mostly, he had given himself ulterior motives. She didn't like him much before, really. He was a creep to her. But now, now his actions had truly pushed her into loathing. Deep-seated hatred that, after so long being blank, she didn't understand.

She hadn't witnessed or known about the indigo that coursed through her veins. She didn't know the source of the emotions that began to flood her, and it was all so confusing. Too confusing. She wanted to bash her head into the wall, to forcefully pull herself out of her body because it all just made her want to... well, she didn't know what she wanted, what she wanted or needed to feel, nothing. For the first time, she would go ahead blind, without the dark portents and voices to guide her. Aradia no longer knew, only hoped and misunderstood. There was nothing in the whirl of thoughts plaguing her muddled mind that was definite for a few moments. The exception to this happenstance formed into one thought, the likes of which she couldn't push away.

The girl wanted to harm Equius. To make him pay for what he had done. She wanted to rip her 'heart' from her chest, though she knew not of its colour, because of the rage that festered and grew like a pest within her soul. She still glared at him, whirling ruby eyes fixed on the mechanic with one goal: to feed the hunger that grew steadily, to absolve what she had been condemned to. She stood, walking over to him, a hand clenched into a fist only to hover over her heart as if to protect it. He didn't have time to react before she slapped him, her hand leaving a harsh mark against his grey skin. She slapped him again, and again and again, but the fury within her only grew. Finally, she pushed him against the wall, hands gouging into the chest and locating the heart that he had made her.

She threw it onto the ground, driving her heel through the pulsating pseudo-flesh and watching with something no less than manic glee as It finally burst. Aradia hadn't even considered the red leanings Equius had clearly forced into her body. Invading her mind. Without her heart, she was numb, blissfully numb again. Numb to the pain that she would cause the Sagittarius troll, too. While he muttered something feverishly, pathetically, about how she, a lowblood, was stronger than him, and that she had no right to treat him in such a way. Aradia then coolly smiled, but the expression was warped and ingenuous. The one side effect, it seemed, to not having a heart was complete and utter apathy and inability to display emotion properly. Not that she minded much.

Paying no mind at all to the deep hue splattered across her front, she bent down to pick the troll up by the collar of his shirt, using her newfound strength to mock him. Letting him go, she was surprised to find that his weight dropped like a sack of flour. She hadn't knocked him out yet, and his eyes weren't dull in any respect, though he was not reacting any more. A broken-toothed smile was frozen on his lips. Equius, the troll renowned for being STRONG, had finally been weakened. It was pitiful, really, how much he had changed. Seeing a bow on the floor, the likes of which was actually not snapped, she took it into her hands. An uncertain grin spread to her lips, and she swept an arrow from where its quiver lay unused. Notching the arrow and pulling the string, a flat laugh escaped her lips.

The arrow struck true, like his own never had.

#aradia #aradia megido #equius #equius zahhak #homestuck #luminescent lyricist writes #0uch #gore warning #🏠 stuck at home 🏠

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narniagiftexchange · 5 years

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THE SUMMER NARNIAN GIFT EXCHANGE.

for @quecksilvereyes by @luxaofhesperides.

EVEN AS A SHADOW, EVEN AS A DREAM. Moments between goodbye and hello. (aka: Caspian wonders about the Pevensies as they try to adjust to life back in England.)

The night feels quiet now. Empty, almost.

He’s given up on sleep; under the care of the moonlight, Caspian wanders the grounds until he can see the door at the edge of the cliff. Though he had seen Aslan weave magic into it, he still found it hard to believe tree branches stacked onto each other could form a doorway to another world. Closed, now, with no chance of opening again unless Aslan willed it.

Capsian gazes at it, his heart heavy with sorrow. It was only hours earlier that he had watched the Telmarines and the Kings and Queens of Old vanish through the door. The sky he could see out past it’s opening was the Narnian sky he loved dearly; what was it the Pevensie’s saw? What sky did they look upon?

The stars offered no comfort or guidance; without the sea, the stars are just stars.

When the dawn comes, Caspian will don his crown and set forth fulfilling his promises as King. Even now, after Aslan named him and his bloodline rulers of Narnia, he feels too young and unworthy to bear the weight of the crown. It would be better if a Narnian took the throne, if Aslan remained to rule over his people, if the Pevensies stayed --

He may not know how to rule a land full of fairytales brought to life, but he’s seen how Miraz ruled and knows what he must never do. Guidance from Miraz is better than none at all, no matter how Caspain feels on the matter.

Tomorrow, he will begin to learn all there is about Narnia. These histories will no longer be spoken in whispers; he’ll record everything so it may never be forgotten. Tomorrow, he’ll give his everything to bring peace and prosperity to Narnia. Tomorrow, he will become King Caspian and no longer belong to himself.

Tonight, under the stars, searching for the shadows of friends now gone, Caspain is just a boy with stars in his eyes, chasing dreams and looking out into a world full of impossible realities and so much to learn.

But he will remain alone.

There are cracks in the universe. Small fractures where different worlds cross and intermingle. There are few left; the last ones, surviving the march of time, hidden in this world. Lucy knows the wardrobe is out of reach, and the train station is just a train station. Still, she will search, peeking down alleys and behind corners in the hopes she stumbles across one.

“Lucy,” Susan calls from the entrance of the station, “Come on, we’ll miss the train.”

She glances back into the alley one last time, then walks away. It feels like there’s a piece of her missing these days. Only a week since they’ve left Narnia, and they all long to go back. Here, in England, in these bodies, they are not their true selves. Lucy watches how Susan walks through the crowd, following just a few paces behind; her gait is still that of a queen, one that demands respect. The crowds part as much as they can, people moving without ever noticing who they’ve moved for.

For now, Narnia lingers in them, but Lucy knows it’s only a matter of time before that disappears as well. If it hurts her, it must be worse for the others.

Peter and Susan, who will never go back, hurt the most. She’s sure of it. But they hide it well, with soft sighs and sleepless nights that Lucy only notices because she can’t sleep either. It’s a heartbreak they all share, but as the eldest siblings, they will keep quiet about it and endure the pain until they can fall apart when no one is watching.

She wants to talk about it, talk about all of them, bring them back together again. But she knows from experience that they all must smother their own pain before they can go back to the way things were.

Peter and Edmund are waiting for them at the station, sitting on a bench idly watching people pass by. She sits besides Edmund and waits for that pinch to come again, but every day she’s waited, and the pull of magic never appeared. The train comes, and the walls of the station don’t change; they board and nothing changes.

The disappointment never leaves her. Lucy longs to go back to Narnia. To dance with the dryads, to play with the fauns, to breathe in air that isn’t filled with smoke; she longs for another lifetime lost.

Edmund gently takes her hand and sits beside her on the train. Ever since their first trip to Narnia, he’s been watching over her as best he could. The pain of his betrayal will always linger within him. So Lucy doesn’t say a thing. She leans against him and gathers the strength to plaster on another smile and survive the day.

When the four of them get off at their stop, following the crowd of students, Lucy watches as Peter straightens up and holds his head higher, and Susan squares her shoulders and keeps her eyes forward. Only Edmund looks off to the sky, statue-still as the crowd moves around him.

Lucy’s always known that she has her heart on her sleeve; there’s never been a reason to hide how she feels. But Edmund, quiet, withdraw, thoughtful Edmund, keeps his cards close to his chest.

She’s never seen him look so heartbroken before.

In the dawn’s gentle light, your soul whispered to me, “Welcome home.”

The stars have guided me to you once; once more, I shall follow them.

“Your Majesty, you’re up early again.” Cythalia, the willow dryad, greets him as he walks through the long hallways. She’s one of the first aides he’s appointed, and over the course of the year, they developed a friendship outside titles and spoke at length about Narnia’s history. She settles in her place a step behind him, following him to the courtyard.

“Sleep has weakened its hold on me lately, it seems,” Caspian replies. He’s grown familiar with Cair Paravel now, having wandered it’s rebuilt halls many nights when the dreams were too much to endure. The Pevensie’s helped recreate the floorplan of the castle from memory before they left, wanting to bring back their old home.

Edmund had told him about the sunrises he’s seen from his balcony during the Golden Age, how the sky slowly warmed with color, the dark of night slipping away to make room for the sun.

“I’d fall in love with the sight every morning. It gave me the strength to become a better king; all I wanted was to keep Narnia safe so all may see the beauty this world has to offer,” Edmund said to him two nights before he left.

The memory is one of many he keeps close to his heart; the softness of Edmund’s dark eyes, the gentleness of his voice, the way he looked silhouetted by the moon. In that moment, he felt at peace, unburdened by the sudden weight of the crown.

He chases that feeling now, waking up early to watch the sunrise, to see what Edmund saw, to find a fleeting moment of peace before he continues his work to help the citizens of Narnia live happily.

Caspian looks out to the sea, to the horizon, and breathes in the salty air. Cythalia places her hand on the trunk of a nearby tree, and waits. They’ve gone through this enough times to know Caspian will speak first.

“What do you remember of the Kings and Queens of Old?” he asks after a long moment, eyes fixed on the horizon.

Cythalia runs a finger down a groove in the bark. “I was barely a sapling when they first arrive,” she says, “but the forest spoke of them long after they left. I heard stories of four children who saved Narnia and brought in endless light. Of High King Peter, who often sat amongst us trees and listened to us sing, of High Queen Susan who let us adorn her hair with our flowers, of King Edmund who protected saplings and and saw our potential to help Narnia as spies, of Queen Lucy who danced with us in the night.”

“Did you ever meet them?”

“No. By the time I was able to leave my tree and take this form, they were busy travelling and ruling Narnia. Then they left. I fell into a deep slumber and only awoke to the sound of Queen Lucy’s voice.”

Caspian turns to her at long last, and though he has grown taller and stronger, his eyes are still that of a young boy listening to fairy tales for the first time.

“Do you miss them?” Cythalia asks, looking over him with worried eyes. Her concern is touching, and Caspian can’t help but smile. Just three years ago, he would have never imagined that one of his closest friends would be a dryad with long hair dotted with yellow flowers and a low voice that drifts on the wind. He once pictured his life as King as a lonely one, helping others then returning to the castle alone; what Narnian would befriend a Telmarine?

Cythalia always smacks his arm when he says that. She’d reassure him that she extended her hand to a lonely Narnian, not a Telmarine. To have a kind friend such as her is a gift Caspain would be forever thankful for.

“I miss them greatly,” Caspain confesses. “I first saw them as children barely older than me, then as heroes, then as friends. I only wish I had gotten to spend more time with them after the war. Sometimes, I dream that they walk these halls and wait for me to catch up. I wake alone, and it always hurts.”

The flowers in her hair wilt ever so slightly. Cythalia looks out to the sea and forces on a smile. “They must have been truly wonderful for you to love them so much.”

“They were.”

“I know there is little I can do to help you carry this pain, but I will always be here if you need to talk. We’re friends after all. You can rely on me.”

She pats his shoulder, then steps back. “Let’s head in. You have a long day ahead of you.”

Caspain turns to follow her back inside. As he steps off the soft ground onto carefully laid tile, he can see in his mind’s eye Peter and Susan walking alongside Aslan the day of their departure. He forces the memory away and prepares himself to begin the day.

Just before they cross the threshold, Caspian says, “Thank you, Cythalia. I am honored to call you a friend.”

“As am I.”

The pain of waking after chasing a memory of Edmund has eased. Though it won’t ever leave him, with a friend by his side, he can endure it for another day.

Peter wonders how many times he can offer to an ear to Edmund before it becomes too much. The first time they came back, thoughtlessly and clumsy, Edmund had spent his days at the manor wandering the grounds, trying to adjust to his young body and learn the lay of the land again. Peter would like to think he has some idea of what Edmund will do to cope with leaving Narnia again; wander and ponder and quietly find his footing in England again.

This is not what Edmund does.

He spends hours in silence, staring at the sky through a dirty window, his schoolwork completed and set aside. He sleeps in erratic bouts, oftentimes up late at night, drinking tea with Susan as they pretend that they’re fine. He looks lost these days, heartbroken and defeated, and Peter knows it’s not because he left his torch in Narnia.

So maybe one more time will do the trick.

“Hey,” he says, trying his best to keep his voice low and gentle, “Ed, you know you can talk to me right? If there’s anything on your mind.”

Edmund doesn’t look at him. “I’m fine. You don’t have to keep checking up on me, you know.”

“You’ve just got me worried. You spend all day looking lost and sad, how am I supposed to ignore that?”

“It’s nothing, really.”

Peter sighs. “Ed. Come on.”

“You make me feel even more guilty every time you ask, you know.”

“Guilty?”

He turns to look Peter in the eye. “Yes, guilty,” he repeats, “Because I miss Narnia, but I know there’s a small chance I may go back one day, but you won’t. Why would I talk about Narnia when I know you miss it more than me?”

“That’s not your fault--”

“The least I can do is not bother you with my brooding.”

Peter drops a hand onto Edmund’s head and messes up his hair as best he can. When Edmund’s successfully fended off Peter’s attack by leaping up and putting distance on them, he’s stopped looking so down.

“What was that for?!”

“You were being stupid, so you deserved it.”

Edmund stops trying to fix his hair to pin Peter with a disbelieving stare. “I’m stupid for being considerate about your feelings?”

Peter pretends to consider the question for a moment, then says, “Yes. You’re making up problems that don’t exist. Talk to me about Narnia. It’s something we all shared. Just because I can’t go back to Narnia again doesn’t mean I want to forget we went there.”

Though he’s never been the most patient of people, Peter is prepared to wait centuries if that’s what it takes to help his siblings.

“I just miss it,” is all Edmund has to say after a few minutes of silence.

They all miss Narnia. That much is obvious. And they’ve all drifted apart to handle their own pain without amplifying another’s. Susan’s taken to collecting quiet, beaten down girls and shaping them into warriors, a habit in Narnia to help women find their own power. Lucy’s taken to drawing landscapes and portraits of Narnia, trying to bring some of it back into England. Peter himself is focusing on living in England again, studying and looking out for those around him, ready to catch any of his siblings if they stumble.

But Edmund is stuck in his sorrow, searching the skies for something and quietly getting through each day like a ghost stuck in a routine. It’s not just from leaving Narnia; the loss goes too deep for that.

“Ed,” he says, worried and wondering if he’s done something to make Edmund so reluctant to talk to him.

“I just keep thinking about it. I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted to stay.” He goes still. Quiet. “I wanted to stay.”

“I know, I know, I did too,” Peter says, guiding Edmund to sit down.

With a great, heavy sigh, Edmund collapses onto the edge of his bed and hangs his head. “We were gone for a thousand years. How much time will pass before I enter Narnia again? I don’t think I can handle losing everyone again.”

Peter feels that he’s finally understood. A memory of Edmund and Caspian talking quietly together in a courtyard under the stars comes to mind. He had left them to talk, knowing they only had a few days left before they had to say goodbye, and wanted them to have them time to themselves.

“Are you afraid you’ll lose Caspian?”

“We just barely met,” Edmund whispered, “But I wanted to get to know him. I wanted to help him.”

No wonder the loss runs deep. Though he may return to Narnia one day, he will most likely never see Caspian again. There’s little he can do to offer comfort, but he’ll try.

Wrapping an arm around Edmund’s shoulder, Peter says, “Don’t give up hope so easily. After all, he still has Su’s horn, doesn’t he? He may call for you again.”

“Maybe,” Edmund says, and the silence that follows tells him Edmund won’t speak again for the rest of the night.

A month later, Peter will say goodbye to Edmund, Lucy, and England. He will board a ship headed to America with Susan and their parents. They’ll try to move forward with their lives, find a way to make a name for themselves outside Narnia, and live as best they can. When they leave, Edmund and Lucy will hug them tightly, and Peter will beg Aslan to let Edmund see Caspian again one day.

But that comes later. For now, Peter leaves Edmund to handle his grief in silence, and makes sure that none of the boys at school try to go after him. He makes tea for Edmund on his quietest days, and waits, ready to be there for his siblings again.

This longing has burrowed into my bones.

In silence and in sound, I shall search for you.

It’s only at sea that he feels whole. There is no pretending, no masks to wear, no lies to tell. Under the sun with the sea beneath his feet, Caspian has never felt more himself. He is more accustomed to the way the ship rocks than he is to the steadiness of the land. He longs for adventure and looks out to an ever-distant horizon, dreaming of sailing to the edge of the world and seeing all that Aslan has created.

Cythalia never comes with him; she cannot leave the land in which her roots grow. So instead of accompanying him, she bullies the crew into letting go of their preconceptions of him and seeing him not as a king, but as Caspian.

The fear and respect the crew has for her always makes him grin; for such a gentle dryad, she’s not afraid to bare her teeth.

So he sails along the coast of Narnia, wandering through towns and speaking to people, always looking for ways to improve. He sails to distant lands in discuss trade and alliances. He looks to the stars and let them guide the journey, finding the constellations Cornelius taught him as a child.

“The brightest star in the sky, Aslan’s eye, shall always show you the way,” he murmurs to himself. With most of the crew below deck, sleeping, he is surrounded by the sound and smell of the sea. The waves crashing against each other, rocking the ship, filling the air with the scent of salt. He is alone at night, quiet and melancholic. The night watch keeps their distance, and never mention his nighttime stargazing in the day.

Even after two years, Caspian finds himself thinking of the Pevensie’s at night. They’ve left his dreams to haunt his waking hours; he wonders about the Narnia they ruled, how it’s changed, if they would be happy with the decisions he’s made as king. He wonders about the life they live in their original world. He wonders how different it is in Narnia.

When he looks to the stars, Caspian thinks of Edmund, the talks they had late at night before he left, and wonders if he looks to the stars in his world and thinks of Narnia.

He wonders if Edmund misses what they could have been as much as he does.

Caspian keeps his gaze on Aslan’s eye, and wishes for an answer.

Susan refuses to talk about Narnia. It haunts her thoughts, plagues her dreams, and never lets her get a moment of rest. She wants to cry, scream, rage at losing the land she ruled and loved for years. She grew up from schoolgirl to queen and back again, and now she can’t find her footing in either world.

Susan refuses to talk about Narnia. It hurts too much.

But for now, she will listen. When Peter wakes up from nightmares about old battles and disorienting dreams of returning to Narnia, she sits with him at the kitchen table and listens, offering silent comfort as the clock ticks on the wall. And when Lucy sends her paintings of Cair Paravel and Tumnus and the centaur she was teaching archery to in her last year as Narnia’s High Queen, Susan keeps them safe and carefully hidden away from her parent’s eyes.

And when Edmund sends letter after letter, telling her about the hurt and loss and longing he carries, how he’s terrified that in the time they’ve been on Earth Caspian has already died, how he doesn’t know if he’ll ever survive leaving Narnia this time around, Susan will listen. She will write back about America, and offer tips on getting through sleepless nights, and promise him that he will survive this.

Not once will she ever mention Narnia, but Susan will remind him that what he feels is real and nothing can ever take that away from him.

Not ever her.

My heart has not known silence since I met you.

Caspian is too scared to wonder too much about why he misses Edmund the most. He has gotten used to the ache in his chest when he thinks of the Pevensies. He can live with the few memories he has of them.

But his memories of Edmund are the brightest; small smiles and hushed voices, starlight and gentle hands. If he looks too closely, it will only hurt more. So Caspian tries to push it aside, ignore it, forget about the wonder he felt the first time he heard Edmund laugh.

He focuses on the sea and guiding his crew through the waters, sparring with them on deck and looking out for any sea monsters that may decide to try to make a meal out of them. The thrill of adventure makes it easy to smile as they travel; the world is full of wonderful things the Caspian carefully documents in his journals, always searching for more knowledge. As a child, he had never imagined the world to be so beautiful, but he stands now with his crew and his heart is (mostly) full.

At night, dreams of Edmund fill his sleep, where they talk of the stars and finding their place in the world, not as two kings, but as two friends. Caspian tries to forget these dreams, no matter how impossible it is.

“The air is sweeter here,” dream Edmund says, “Not full of smoke that coats your lungs until you cough up ash. It’s a lovely world. Take care of it.”

I will, he thinks, I promise you, I will care for this world as best I can.

Above him, Caspain can swear he sees Aslan’s constellation smile. It must have been his imagination, but the sight filled him with light, so he holds onto it anyways.

He’s lucky that Lucy is still with him. With Peter and Susan gone, England is unbearable. There’s another war brewing; he knows the cost of battle, how it takes and takes and takes and still demands more. He’s no king here, and no one will follow him. But he can fight and protect the land he lives in now.

If he is of age. Which he is not.

Edmund tries to enlist time and time again, but Lucy always appears to drag him back. He’s all she has left in England, and he knows he shouldn’t leave her, but there will always be a part of him that demands sacrifice, that tells him he is still not forgiven for his betrayal.

“I just want to be worth something here,” he tells her one day as they make their way down the streets, Lucy peeking into alleys and around corners. “I want to be more than just Edmund.”

“You’re my brother,” she says, “The Just King Edmund. You’re enough, so stop trying to throw yourself into a war that has nothing to do with us.”

It’s an argument that never ends, so he stays silent the rest of the way back to their Aunt Alberta’s house, where they count the days until their parents are back from America so they can never see her again.

Lucy is quick to collect any mail addressed to them, then disappears up the stairs to her room. Edmund follows, brushing passed Eustace, who says something to him that he ignores. Lucy’s room is their only sanctuary now, where they can take a moment to breathe without anyone criticizing them.

He reads through the letter Susan sent him, advising him to cherish the feelings he has as the strongest tie he has towards Narnia. She never writes out ‘Narnia’, but it’s implied enough that Edmund knows where it goes. Peter adds a little note at the end telling him to make tea if he can’t sleep and to look after Lucy.

“It sounds like they’re doing well,” Lucy comments as she finishes reading her letter. “America sounds nice.”

“Anywhere sounds nice compared to here,” Edmund says, smiling when Lucy collapses onto her back, groaning dramatically.

“You’re right about that.”

“Do you still miss it?” Edmund asks suddenly, the words pulled out of him without warning.

“Hmm?”

“Narnia. Do you still miss it?”

Lucy sits up and regards him carefully. “I always miss it. Not a day goes by when I don’t wish to return. Why?”

Why indeed. He looks to the painting in her room, of a distant ship on a vibrant sea. He swears he can hear the waves, but he doesn’t say a thing about it. The waves are as real as the dreams he has about walking the halls of Cair Paravel with Caspian.

“No reason,” Edmund answers, “Just curious.”

That is where this will end, that day. But the next day, when the two of them go through this routine again, Lucy will talk more about Narnia and the waves in the painting will come to life. For now, Edmund looks at the painting, listens to the waves only he can hear, and feels something settle in his chest.

______________________ notes: title from Euripides: "Come back! Even as a shadow, even as a dream." i recommend listening to this song while reading poetry fragments in between scenes are all original. i just couldn't think of a decent poem to put them into lol.

i hope you like it!!

#tcon #narnia #casmund #caspian x #edmund pevensie #susan pevensie #peter pevensie #lucy pevensie #for quecksilvereyes #by luxaofhesperides #narnia gift exchange #summerexchange: 1 #type: fanfiction

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willspoemsforliving · 6 years

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CLOSING DOORS FIRST

We always think the future is found through an open door

It’s as if that’s all we need for a world that offers more

But who thinks of what we’ve brought along?

It’s the past we’ve carried on our backs, and to it we still belong

It’s filled with images of various hew

Different places, different times, some old, some new

Loaded on our backs, we bend under its weight

With no realization of its influence or just how great

The voices, the images received mostly from others

Were our first impressions of ourselves given by fathers and mothers

Like a rough sketch, to be filled in later on

It nonetheless creates the foundation we will build upon

For unnoticed by most who labor on for years

There is one theme, and it’s the mother of all fears

For it is the gift that keeps on giving, as long as we allow

Each time we approach a new field, waiting for the plough

For we are made of the images that others shared along the way

They tell us more what we can’t do, than how to have our own say

The reflection of others, each subjective and not assuredly benign

Though it’s right in front of us, we don’t recognize the sign

Danger would be its first alert, setting off some bells

Too soon to evaluate its present threat, for it offers no obvious tells

In the absence of anything clear that would specifically define

The machine is set in motion, ready to block the line

Not the case for everyone, some voices heard in our head

Yes, there are people residing there, be they living or dead

Whisper words of capacity, telling us to advance, and to be strong

They give no answers simplre, but confidence that we belong

Yet sadly such instances of benign empowerment

Are rarely alone in residence, sharing the rent

With all the criticisms recived – some gone, others still around

Try though w may, we cannot block their sound

They speak of years gone by, of advice given, the right thing to do

Listen carefully to their words, for they offer little new

Repeating the same message of hesitation, confirming the doubt

That it’s their version of us – not ours – that it’s all about

Some are paralyzed by fear, others blinded by their rage

Regardless of the time or the place, or even of our age

But nowhere in this mix of muddled emotions and pain

Some set us up for failure, others enable us for gain

The point here is to indicate, unless we are aware

That our paths are traced by others and of their warnings, beware

In fact and truth how much do we alone decide?

Who holds the tillar, who commands the ship, the ride?

Is it me who makes the choice?

When I speak, is it mine the voice?

With each repetition, is laid another stone

Our true selves less to be known

A hybrid, a mix, a synthesis of opposing forces

Torn in different directions, pulled apart by raging horses

And before we know it we have indeed become

In this game of life, who has really won?

Confused as to we really are, who holds the key?

Who is driving the car? And am I really free?

So before searching for that supposed waiting door

The one with promised riches, for me in store

The one you thought was yours, the road to something more

Check out the room, the walls and especially the floor

Is it familiar, disquieting, and have you heard it all before?

Does it offer the same thing or something new, something more?

For born we are, each with a path, our lives spent searching for

The truth lies hidden deep within our treasure trove, our core

Yet like Frankenstein, if not of one piece but stitched together from different parts

Somehow alive yet dead, our hearts blind to possibilities and their sacred charts

Daily reminders from the past abound, calling you back home

Weekend visits, birthday celebrations, or each day on the phone

Do they point to someone place new, yours to be known

Or do they hold you back, a sin for which you will atone

Be sure that those who defined you in days long gone by’

Why told you what was good or bad, but rarely why

Who warned you to be one way, when you wanted to be another

Thus does one get lost, courage and ambition they smother

See who you have become when freed from their defining eye

When you look to the horizon, wherein does it lie?

Do you lift your gaze up high into the sky?

Filled with enthusiasm, can you not learn to fly?

There you have it, two choices, two ways through two doors

Will you see your life as an adventure, or just a bunch of chores

This happens more than you think, depression rules the realm

That’s because no captain with a taste for life stands tall and holds the helm

One choice more commom, sold as prudent, in fact its rather weak

Who made it, was it the past that did in face speak?

Or was it something coming from deep within your soul

If yes, then listen, for it will make you whole.

Reflect on these voices and ask yourself this essential question

Is it truly your own path or the one prescribed by other’s direction?

Which do you want – theirs or one of your own confection?

Theirs is designed to fulfill their own dreams too often unrealized

How clearly do they really see you, or have they criticized?

Who you became when far from their guiding hand

After sampling life from some foreign land

A place of difference, where assumptions are not the same

Where others see you as you are, not caught in some game

Surprsing to discover you have a face of your own

The child starts to explore, and a life waiting to be known

For if the life you had was mostly theirs

Needing, like some grown up childl their nurturing cares

Unwittingly have you always played along?

Adjusting your trajectory when they said you were wrong

For almost never are we who are parents imagined us to be

The chains of love and obligation struggle to set your free

Blind rebellion is no valid course, for its equally defined

Even if in opposition, the past still controls your mind

It has always been this way when we had to leave the nest

Driven by need in the past, time to face the test

For when the unknown crosses our path, opportunity arrives

And if embraced as such, it can enrich our lives

Your dreams are filled with things too often set aside

So much easier in the daytime from oneself it is to hide

The night’s voices may indeed be closer to your own

Listen to them, their words, their message, their tone

All questions best asked while on your way

Be mindful how strangers see you and how they hear what you say

For they come from the present with no agenda dating from your birth

Nor are they invested in your value, or your net worth

Listen carefully, for these strangers don’t know your name

They may just help you find your true game

They know only what now they see and hear

Suddenly the road looks different – not cluttered but free and clear

They have no filter and see only who you now are

Take this image for it might just take you far

For therein lies your true hidden door

Dare to go through it if from life you want more

It truly is your future, the only one you will get

So step up to the table, and on yourelf place your bet

#Psychology #Poetry #Jung #Persona #Mask #false identity #Self confidence #Self-aware #Philosophy #psychotherapy #analytical psychology

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julesplanb-blog · 7 years

Text

“To understand the miracle of living”

(Day 2)

The following note contains heavy spoilers on the Black Mirror episode “San Junipero” (season 3 episode 4) and some minor ones on other episodes from the show. Please also check tags for content warning.

I used to be one of those persons relatively at peace with the very concept of death, yet always struggling with the unfairness of it, the way it strikes indifferently young or old people, comes as the natural ending of a fully-lived life for some, and robs some others of it. I don't believe in afterlife, at least not in an afterlife our beings, minds, souls, if you want to call it that way, could apprehend (thus, survive) anyway. And though the thought of _not existing anymore _would be utterly scary to me, the idea of life having an end wasn't. If anything, it appeared to me as something giving life meaning: if here and now was all that we have, then here and now was incredibly precious. Which is why I'd always fear I wouldn't get enough of it. Fear that I would die before I got to see everything I wanted to see, read everything I wanted to read, met everyone I've wanted to talk to, and wrote every story I had in mind.

Then something happened. The city I was living in went through several attacks. Friends got injured. Friends lost friends. The all city got traumatized. And, I guess, I got traumatized. In the following weeks, the fear of dying or losing people would eat a lot of mind space whenever I would be in the subway, on a café terrace, at the theather... Whenever I would actually be, you know, living on, and in the end, it was smothering me. Till the next attack, on a different city, but where relatives happened to live. For the 3rd time in 15 months I found myself calling people I loved on the phone, to make sure they did not die a horrible, unfair and pointless death. And I believe that's the day something snapped.

From that day I stopped being afraid. I stopped thinking about it. I stopped watching my back on every subway station. Which seemed like a good thing until I realized: I wasn't afraid anymore because I did not care anymore. For nothing. I used to fear death a lot because they were so many things that would make me happy, because I used to enjoyed living, so much, in so many aspects, and so the only way my stupid brain found to stop that fear was to make everything tasteless and pointless and not important anymore. Nothing mattered. Nothing would make me laugh, or cry. I couldn't feel anything anymore. Couldn't be inspired by any words, couldn't find beauty in any landscape, taste in any food, enlightment in any book. At some point, I wouldn't even experience physical pain from injuries, or physical pleasure from the touch of the water. This turned out to be the worst experience of my life. Worse than fighting that physical illness I've been struggling with for 12 years, worse than grieving the death of my favorite human being, and worse than being in fear all the time. I was actually missing it. The constant fear. The pain. The sorrow. Those proofs that not only I was alive, but that I wanted to be, that I wanted to stay longer. I figured out pleasure and pain, joy and fear, were just one big switch. I couldn't turn some off and still have the rest of it. And to my horror, I had no idea of to switch the whole system back on. So I held on as tight as I could to the smallest thing left: that fear of never getting it back. That tiny evidence that some part of me still wanted more life. For a while I would stay away from art, writing, fiction, books, because they were my very favorite things in life and it was devastating to try those on and realize they wouldn't work anymore. I was also scared to waste it on a shut down mind. "Oh, I'll keep that movie for when I'll be better and actually able to enjoy it"

I was all wrong of course. The best way to get better, was to feed that tiny piece of me left with art, writing and books. Which I started to do at some point, asking around for new things to read, watch, experience. I've read brand new authors. Wrote a short novel myself. Got back on drawing and music And I could tell I was slowly getting my senses back, when a friend of mine told me I should try Black Mirror Season 3. Now, if you did watch the 2 first seasons of this british anthology on technology, you know how strange a choice it would be to advise such a dark show on someone trying to find reasons to being alive. But to this day, I suspect that friend actually wanted me to experience "San Junipero", and couldn't spoil the surprise by advising me to skip directly to that very episode....

The contrast effect with the previous episodes probably carries some weight in what makes "San Junipero" such a grand, beautiful piece of writing. If you recall the first episode of Black Mirror, "National Anthem", you know the show is not only about technology itself, but about the way we use it. About, with or without smart electronic devices, we behave. All it would have taken for "National Anthem" to end right was people behaving with basic decency. Same goes for the Waldo Moment. Or "15 millions merits": it's not the technology that guts you in the end, it's the choice the human protagonist makes. All and all, Black Mirror is quite a pessimistic take, not on progress, but on human nature.

But not in "San Junipero". In this one, we finally get to see a future where technology but more importantly, people, are displaying kindness. And it's all the more powerfull when you realize how easy it would have been to write something dark on such a topic.

Indeed, San Junipero, which appears at the beginning to be a "party town", in 1987, is actually a virtual reality where elder people can spend a limited amount of time every week as their younger selves, in order to fight alzheimer's effect or simply enjoy life pleasures in their final days, and where they can be uploaded permanently after they pass. As I said, death occurs in thousands of unfair ways and to me, the only thing that did seemed fair about it was that it's coming for everyone, no matter what you did, no matter who you are. It's quite easy to imagine a future, or at least a Black Mirror episode, where a technology used to cheat death would just be one more, final, unfathomable injustice. Say, only rich people can access it. But it's not the case here. If the time allowed in the system is limited, it's only to prevent people for losing their minds. And staying or not staying is entirely up to you.

Well, almost. The episode follows Yorki on her first night in San Junipero, where she meets Kelly (now there's a lot to discuss about the way Yorki being gay and Kelly being bi is addressed or not addressed, and I think it's done quite beautifully, but that's a topic for another note entirely). Ensue a bound between the two women, who ultimately fall for each other, only, they don't welcome those feelings the same way. While loving Kelly makes Yorki happy, Kelly doesn't want to "do feelings". Doesn't want to like anyone here in San Junipero. "So you've been just totally fucking inconvenient", she says to Yorki when the two are reunited.

We then find out about San Junipero's true nature, and about Yorki and Kelly's respective situations: they're both old, on the final weeks of their lives but those lives coulnd't have been more different. Yorki suffered a car accident about 40 years ago - the very night she came out as gay to her folks, who rejected her -, and has been quadriplegic since there, missing out on life, while Kelly was married for 50 years, and had a daughter who died in her late 30's, before the technology was even available. Her husband passed away too, a couple years ago, and wouldn't even try on San Junipero, because it could not foresee living on without their daughter.

And Kelly is set on the same choice: she's in San Junipero in her last months because she wants to "have a good time" but does not intend to stay after she dies. Not because she believes she'll actually be reunited with her husband and daughter in heaven - she in fact believes life is all, and that there's nothing past it - but because she gets a sense that living forever is meaningless. That it would take away meaning and taste out ouf everything in life, that she'll end up like most of San Junipero's permanent residents: alone, trying every fucked up thing they could in a desperate attempt to feel something. Because in a way, she gets that she already lived her life, experienced it all and is done.

On the other hand, Yorki can't wait to be a permanent resident, but her family - again - won't let her, so in order to do so, she has to marry Greg, a nurse at her care facility, who will allow her to be euthanized then uploaded into the system. When Kelly finds out about Yorki's situation, she offers to be the one marrying her. "Greg seems great but... why not someone you connected with?". (At this point I was already smiling ear to ear - and, ok, crying just a tad). Yorki thus becomes a permanent resident and finally gets to enjoy walking, moving, feeling. And being loved, something we know she was deprived of basically her whole life. So it makes sense for her to want to share it with Kelly, to have Kelly staying with her. "This is so real", she says to her. "This is not a trap". But Kelly then tells her about her own life story ("did it occur to you to ask?"), about her late husband and daughter, and states again that she made her choice not to stay in San Junipero.

So while I was actually understanding both their point of view, and especially Kelly's, I was fearing the episode ending on Yorki's finally getting her chance to live... in a solitary, meaningless place. Trapped. Because that's what that show is about: how technology and our way to use it is a trap. And that's what the episode was about, wasn't it? Stating that living forever is pointless without a reason, a person to share it with and that accepting death itself should not be that depressing. Yorki and Kelly's fight about it ends with Kelly running away in her car, and crashing, just as Yorki did 40 years ago following her fight with her folks, about being gay. And at the very moment Yorki reaches for Kelly's hand to help her back on her feet, Kelly's time in San Junipero is up, and she's sucked out of the system, back to her dying body, while Yorki remains alone. But then comes the final twist. The one that you usually fear for Black Mirror has the ability to leave you listless on the floor. The one, that, here, in an consistent, organic way with the rest of the narrative, actually brings tears of joy to your eyes. Yorki's line earlier turns out to be true: it's not a trap.”

So Kelly passes over, and actually chose to stay in San Junipero. For a second there, through the overwhelming wave of mere happiness I was experiencing, the tiniest part of me got upset. Because the former me, the "before PTSD and emotional shutdown me" was actually agreing with Kelly, on forever being pointless, on having lived your life and accepting there's an end to it and it felt like a let down to have a character not believing in afterlife but still finding meaning in death, going the other way in the end. This feeling lasted a second or so, before I realized something in Kelly's very last words and on the last shot of the episode itself.

Kelly did not change her mind about the meaning or aftermath of death, let alone about the lack of meaning in "forever". She doesn't say "ok let's go on living forever" but that, “all things considered” she’s ready for the rest of it. I guess that by mimicking Yorki's car accident, which left her trapped in a organic, natural and, yes, 'real' body but deprived her of any physical experience, Kelly put herself in her lover's shoes, became aware that the full life she lived, the joy, the pain, the all experience of it, was denied to Yorki, and that San Junipero is her chance to finally get that. To live. But as her last line states, Kelly's final choice to stay in San Junipero isn't made out of pity, but out of that second and more personal / self-centered realization that there's a "rest of it" for her too. Some things left to experience, some happiness left to live. She makes that choice out of realization she does have, in her love for Yorki, a reason to stay on a big longer.

I don"t think that "For the rest of it" happens to be San Junipero's last spoken line by chance. For me, it's one final description of what the system has to offer. Just like the very last image happens to be the computing servers hosting the population's spirits, consciousness, souls, if you'll have it.

Kelly and Yorki's souls still exist on a physical, thus perishable, mortal medium. At some point, that server will crash, or run out of power. Something will end it. Just as an organic body, it is ephemeral and won't last forever. Because San Junipero, the system, and, I think the story, isn't about forever. It's about love, connecting with people, and other reasons making worthwile to hang around a bit longer.

It's about "the rest of it". It's about more life. And as of today, yes. I do know what that's worth.

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#tvshow #charlie brooker #black mirror #san junipero #ptsd #death #writing

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paranoiakrp · 5 years

Photo

CITIZEN FILE RETRIEVED: AHN KIHA …

STATS

name / ahn kiha d.o.b. / 11.29.97 age / 22 pronouns / he/him job / bartender societies / necronomicon groups / n/a

WHATS YOUR WEIRD?

tw: self harm.

loneliness makes monsters of us all, and this is no less true for boys wandering through too-silent libraries, searching for spaces to fold selves into; origami with paper-cut blood staining corners carefully creased before being thrown into some pyre burning into the afterlife.

the tome is thick, heavy in his hands. he curls the title around his tongue, slow like bladepoint around teeth. necronomicon.

it tastes half-acidic, burns his mouth. there’s his grandmother’s voice, reminding him of demon-things and the different kinds of hellfire awaiting him.

grief makes fools of us all, and this is no less true for boys flipping thick covers open, minutes turned to hours turned to days of visits, of stays poring over pages with scripts spiralling.

the first time he draws blood, it is almost too easy. the red slides across wrists and runes look almost beautiful, even with clumsy fingertips.

blood sacrifices are nothing if not greedy. it demands vein, asks for arteries, pleads for the rivulets of self spilled in library back-tables, shaking hands turned steady with the years of practice.

it allows you to be the same – what do you wish for, boy?

at first: the return of parents. they always come back hanging, swinging from rafters and tree branches, howling. begging for necks snapped, for hellfire or purgatory; anything but this half-being he so greedily asks them to relive, again and again.

( keep the screams, the spells in back-pockets for rainy days. he asks them every variation of why and they never answer; string them back out of bitter anger rather than answer at this point )

and now: for grandmother’s tonics to be as magic as she claims, for the company ghosts, for the flame-touch of another in secret, for always-full tip jars, for the fraying edges of his grandmother’s sanity to unravel under his red-stained fingertips –

claim that it is well-deserved, that bloodied runes drawn at dusk are mere shortcuts for endings he was to reach anyways – there are worse ways to be using blood, worse ways to have to explain the scars that mars wrists, forearms, chests.

stare at it too long and it becomes beautiful, becomes him; red worn too well, too worn against skin.

practice it for too long and knifepoints become familiar, becomes a comfort a body shouldn’t know.

magic demands an intimacy that is nothing if not invasive and he is nothing if not bared open for a harvesting.

WHATS YOUR STORY?

tw: implied suicide mention

childhood is smothered in sage and burnt lichen; grandmother’s houses and mobiles made of animal bone and playthings of berries he crushed into bowls but was told never to eat. heels are mud-slicked in the summer, palms red-purple-green stained and trekking water into small houses by mountainsides.

easier memories. they become jagged-toothed when he remembers the bedtime stories grandmothers used to tell him; devils at one’s doors and the smiles they wear when they ask to come in; skin-wearers that prowl the forest at night; witches and their greed for human flesh between their teeth –

( how much of it has become him? )

perhaps concerning, parents consider, how the little boy runs not home at the end of each school day, but chooses instead to trapeze forest paths to reach grandmother’s cabins. knows to wait outside should she be seeing another client; rewarded by the tussle of hair when she bids them farewell and welcomes him in.

perhaps concerning, but there are worse things for boys to be playing with. they laugh at dinners, proclaim that perhaps junae has a new medicine man in the making, at the rate in which he follows his grandmother’s footsteps – it won’t be long before the townspeople make the trek to the edge of junae to see him for the sicknesses that city medicine does little to aid.

it is as much of an ideal as one would get in a town like this.

a luxury, still, to dream of such. junae demands blood and bone for dreams, don’t you know?

it’s a tuesday evening when the normalcy of elementary school / grandmother’s place / home for dinner / fairytales before bed / repeat / repeat / repeat is quickly halted.

he claims to not remember the bodies hanging. no one asks if he does or not.

what he does recall: the hems of his mother’s skirt as he reaches up to tug it, the cold hands of his father, how broken necks angle faces downwards so that he has the perfect view of glassy eyes looking back at him.

( does it last hours or minutes, this staring contest? it might have been twilight or midnight by the time he dials the only number he can remember )

his grandmother calls the police. it’s almost dawn by the time the bodies are removed from the living room.

it takes weeks before the smell begins to dissipate again.

little is considered unusual in junae, but whispers are inevitable in a town as small as this. it is the only way it knows how to stay alive.

the case is open-and-close, but still, the whispers are quick to question what has a couple coming into work one day just like any other, only to return home to take their own lives – what has them leaving a son behind, why there was no note, why the front doors were left unlocked and chairs tucked neatly to the side –

kiha pretends he does not hear the words staged or murder when his grandmother picks him up after school now.

make it easier; boy leaving classes earlier and earlier in the day, knocking on his grandmother’s door and receiving nothing but open arms despite the too-soon hour in which he returns.

they follow like ghosts, quietly into adulthood. the whispers simmer, but it still lingers behind backs, in memory; forests housing gravestones murmuring a dissent he doesn’t quite make out the words for.

( so we spill blood for answer, as we always do. the ghosts remain stubbornly silent )

grandmothers still whisper hushed reminders of fairy-stories; the spirits in the mountain that took parents’ breath, the beast in the underground that eats their buried bodies, limb by limb.

careful, dear child. she smells of rosemary and mint, stringing amulets to windows; protective. secrets are always hungry.

he wears long sleeves in the summer, hiding scars, hiding runes until he takes the corners of her vision to see him only as the memory of a purer thing, before all the blood spilled.

my baby boy, i fear only that this town will take you away from me too. listen to your grandmother’s warnings carefully, won’t you?

he’s almost sorry for all he’s yet to do.

#pa.app #pa.koo junhoe #pa.necronomicon

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