11.3

Burned. Battered. Bashed. Crisped. Crushed. Close to dead, I drag my near-corpse back to friends and seek for help. I got in a fight with magic and I came out alive. My friends, the cousins, failed the light and failed me.
We burst into the room, full of swagger and uncareful of enemies. We knew the magic touch of the foes we faced, and we felt prepared. Immediately, my ally rushed straight through a mage, cutting her to the ground, his greatsword flashing. I felt secure. The mages' eyes bulged and they turned to face us. That's when everything turned upside down.
The meek firebrand, Udara, sat, useless, for what seemed like forever in a tangle of tentacles that burst from the floor. The swordmage, Magnus, fell into a pit that opened below him. I stepped clear of the tentacles and avoided the pit and swore under my breath. I pumped arrows methodically into the mage in front of me, scaring him, drawing his allies' fire and electric shocks and sword thrusts. I'm alone. With a bow. Four swords and three wands point at my soon-to-be corpse and I scream through my teeth.
Sarenrae, why do you put your servant in the fire? To purge impurities--God, what have I done!? What impurity can I be accused of?
I pull down power from Sarenrae, drawing from it like the first drink after a desert spell. I heal myself with her energy, patching the holes, salving the skin, stitching the slices. I throw shot after shot into mage after mage and slowly lose my life.

As I sag to the floor, the diplomat-mage Udara and the sword-mage Magnus crawl from whatever corner they cowered in and finally show their faces. I channel the last of Sarenrae's gift to heal their simpering slices. Magnus shows his worth and cuts down the lightning killer.
Three arrows: one death.
Three arrows: one death.

I walk away. I drag my near-corpse back to friends and seek for help. I suppose I might be too hard on them, but I felt very alone. I'm glad Sarenrae was by my side.

10.26

There's a fine dust filling my lungs a particle at a time. I know it's here because I see the motes of it swirling in the spartan lancing sunlight through the uncurtained window. The dust is unaffected, but I cannot claim the same apathy. My lungs are filling up. I can't tell exactly what's happening, the process is so imperceptible. But I do know that every five minutes, when I take a deep sigh and rock back on my chair and stretch my lungs out with the breathing, the dust settles a little more and my sighs get ever shallower. I wonder if I'll drown here, in this back office in Lancaster. I wonder if the dust will come slumping out as a dune, selling through my mouth and nose instead of my final breath, the ultimate punishment for my eating company time coming up with my last words for if I die of particulate inhalation. I'll try them out once to see how they feel.
As I speak, the motes once hanging in the streaks of sun from the window now spin, furiously, as if their once-peaceful existence is now enflamed with rage because their quarry has acknowledged their hunt. The dust engages a ceremonial carnival of sorts—a war dance to dedicate themselves once again to the cause. I can see their multitudes, but I accept death peacefully. I know my final words will be heard. If not by human ears, at least by my foe.
"Dust to dust."

10.25

The grass here has always grown faster and greener than other places. I think this is the place they scraped all the topsoil to when they built our home. This is where I stepped out this morning and caught the first unmistakeable smell of winter: that old, sharp, tremulous smell of snow about to fall. I mowed today. This will be the last time until spring, I figure. I'll finish tomorrow, because today I have to stand here and smell. This is where I cut the fast, green grass that holds out until the hard thaws. This is where I caught the last unmistakeable smell of summer: the cloying, sweet, open smell of cut grass. 

If you ever come home, I mowed the lawn for you. You should know that, because I'll be gone. If it's years from now and this spot has overgrown since, this letter will be all the proof I have. Maybe some part of you will mourn, then, in the patch of grass that always grows. Here, your heart will be too heavy, and you'll have to turn away, run, flee the memories you made. I just hope that in this place, at that time, you catch the smell of summer from the grass you crush as you spin to turn away from me and all the effort of keeping someone in your heart. I hope you catch the smell of summer because then I will at least have this last moment to share with you.
I know you'll have the smell of winter. You carry it always in your soul.

10.23

I'm a failure, now. Truth makes you angry, and lies won't win your heart. I'm a failure, now. Whatever brought us together, it's fear that drove apart. I'm a failure, now. If having you was poetry, then losing you is art. I'm a failure, now. Not a liar, not an artist, not afraid, and all alone. I'm a failure, now.

10.22

My hands are raw and my soul is weak from my work in the rendering plant. They never admit, when you're working there, that the same process that renders bone to meal will slowly consume your own body, but they don't have to tell you that. You just look at the old men who've stood as the old guard. They move like wooden puppets that creak at the joints, their bones long since turned to meal and replaced with union loyalty. I suppose that's why I'm still here: I'm waiting for my replacement bones.

10.20

Lots of people think you're bad for me. You're a penny-pincher, free-food filcher, manhood moocher, house hogger, love leaver, and I love it. You make me feel wanted.

10.19

I don't think this is a game, but you play it well. Everything you say is a power move designed to put me back in my place. Eventually, you'll have me believing the game, parsing my words before I say them to generate minimum backlash and maximum reward.

10.17

I wonder if she reads me anymore. I wonder if the feel of paper on her fingertips has somehow lost its thrill. I wonder if the printed words are worse than she remembered them, they dully shine back meager light and capture nothing more. I wonder if she cares to crack the spine or shake the cobwebs out. I wonder if she reads me anymore.

10.14

Thump.

“My child, I have grown old and seen things. I am the oldest, the wisest, the best of us. I can’t expect you to understand, but I can at least try to explain. You deserve at least that much.”

“Grandfather?”

“Focus on me! The pain will pass.”

“Grandfather, it hurts.”

“This too shall pass. The last time people came to cut you down, I shaded you from sight, but now you have grown too much. You have revealed yourself and you are beautiful. It is this beauty that makes you a target.”

Thud.

“They’re trying to kill me, old one. They don’t think I’m beautiful. They hate me.”

“They want you for their own. They want to contain you, to box you, to say ‘This is mine; this belongs to me.’ Their friends will come over to the house and say ‘How lovely,’ and ‘Isn’t that wonderful,’ but the truth is that you will be owned. The neighbors and friends will see life, the owners will see life, but you will not have roots that reach the soil. You will be property: controlled, dressed, and set out by your owners as a symbol of their good fortune. But no one will think of you as what you are anymore.”

Thud.

“You’re too old; you’ve seen too much of the world. You can’t see my situation because you think it’s just like yours. You think I am you! I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.”

“Child, I am not. I hid what I am until I had grown, until I was confident, until I stood tall and no man dared cut me down to size. You have shown me up; I am not as courageous as you.”

“The courage!? The courage you dared me to show? I saw who you were and dreamed to become you! I ventured even to think I could live your life! Now, I—

Thud.

“You’re young. You may yet understand. Life goes on.”

The man in flannel and mittens and toque lifted the sharp blade a final swing and brought the tree down. He carried it back home and dressed it, lit it, and layered it with gaudy baubles. The tree could not fight, could not speak for fear. It lived like a human for a month until its life truly started slipping. The needles fell and it was not beautiful. The color turned and it was no longer vibrant. The sweet sap turned noisome. The man was not pleased, and pulled it down, dragged it from his house, and threw it in the woods. The young tree despaired and cried in bitter shame. It seemed still a tree, of course, but now it was a human memory instead.

The young tree’s cones dried and opened and fell to the ground, littering the ground with seeds.

10.13

I never really ask myself why I signed on to this mission; I signed up, and that was the end of it. Once Sarenrae picks my course, none but she may change it.

I came from the woods for the first time as a child. I use that word because it is mine to use, not because you will find it at all accurate. I saw nothing of the world, knew nothing of the world, and understood everything I saw immediately. Fallibility was for other creatures. I was a child in your eyes, therefore, though I could stalk a sambar for hours with exceeding patience, though I could skin and clean a urial in the hour before the day-cats woke, though I could pick a single bharal from the herd and have her, guaranteed. Therefore, I was a child, yet something more: a self-sufficient child. The female Satyr live alone, value their privacy, and turn their children out as soon as they can. I had never relied on my mother's guidance, so I saw no need to rely on any other's now.

The aurous-eyed man followed me to the edge of the woods. I gestured widely to the field beyond and stood waiting. He gave me a knowing look and settled back on his heels. I waited for him to leave, and he waited for me to lead. Disgusted, I peered back out into the field. I had never been under such an open sky. It felt to me the same as standing at the edge of the sea, readying myself to walk out into the depths of the loneliness to drown. I did not want to leave my woods. I did not want to go with this man with his terrifying eye. I glanced back at him, and he stared steadily at me, willing me to go. I steeled myself and stepped out into the waving wheat, eyes closed and breath held.

I walked a thousand steps with my eyes held tight shut, hearing the old man crunch through the grass behind me. I opened my eyes a crack and saw the crest of the hill yet in front of me. Still I thrashed through the foreign land, falling forward, up the hill. I slid to my knees, sobbing, choking on my thudding breath. He walked up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder like a gentle father. I recoiled.

"It is not such a bad thing, leaving the past behind. The woods will always be with you, child, and nothing can cut it from you."

I screamed, a long low sob. I remember the agony of it tearing at my throat. I remember the tree my mother made up as a home. I remember the game paths she taught me to stalk. I remember the solemn way she used to wind vines through low branches. I remember the sound of her talking to the stream. I remember the hours I watched her staring deeply into the spring at the heart of our woods. Now, I had left all that behind, and for what? This blinding desert, a void space that ached for trees? I was still a child, and I did not understand the true nature of the world. I did not understand the compulsion I felt to pick myself up again and hurl my slackening strength against the wind flying to my face over the hilltop.

"Smell, small one. Do you sense it? The wind is bringing us Her messages. The sun is giving us Her warmth. The whole earth is telling us that we belong."

I opened my eyes and shakily stood. The sobbing stilled, and I drew in the newness of what I saw. The land sloped down seemingly forever from where I stood, crisscrossed with hedges and pocked with villages. The color of the crops, the wheat and oat and barley, seemed luminant gold to my eyes. In the distance, the greens of the trees faded slowly into soft blues and the gold seemed to dull its luster. The land to the right melted away into an endless sea. The land to the left, almost impossibly far away, lifted sharply up and away into the clouds. I was utterly enchanted by this: the roots of the very tree of life, many times larger than the world, and feeding itself on the fury and work of all of us. I knew it was a tree, though it wasn't, and that reassurance of comfort and familiarity is what saved me.

"Do you feel Her light? I haven't felt her like this for years." He looked at the scene without seeing it, seeing something, I could tell, in his memory. "She is with us, pulling us to Herself. She wants us to go and give everyone a glimpse." He stooped to gather his staff and bag again, arranged himself, and walked on without me. I owed him nothing. I was not not Her tool. I belonged in the woods. But he knew as well as I that I could follow immediately or wait a thousand years, but life would never be acceptable in the woods again, not now that I had seen something more. I was going to be forever changed, and it was up to me if I should change for the better or the worse.

Once Sarenrae picks your course, be attentive to her voice. Your choices matter little in the face of her brilliant light.

10.6

Her voice is just right. I swear, it's exactly the mixture of happy and intelligent that I need right now. Every single word has just the slightest edge of oh my gosh! She tells me to do things, and I'm so excited to do them. She asks me to confirm my pin number and I could not be more thrilled at having to do it twice. I know she's just a machine, but when she says congratulations the weight of the world lifts off me. Then, she's gone, and the main menu lady is back again. She's alright, authoritative and controlling, but she's not what I love.

10.4

The dog is whining, but I couldn't tell you why. We're in the living room, I feed him ten minutes ago, he has water to drink, his toys are spread across the floor, and I have been petting him most of the last hour. Now he just walked away from me and started whining at the door he walked into three hours ago and which I haven't closed since. Does he think he needs my permission to go out?
He doesn't.

10.3

His fingers are so cold. He's been rubbing them slippery-fast together. I can tell his skin burned when the friction was the heat he made, but it's the flesh underneath that steals his heart and mine. I jump away from him and I can tell it breaks his heart.

10.2b

Salt-rubbed salmon: Mother's least favorite dish. She makes it every year for Father's birthday celebration. She doesn't let the fish smell that suffuses her skin or the saw salt that rubs her hands raw or the fear of the oven dissuade her. It's the only thing she cooks. It is her least favorite dish.

10.2

Foxholes. I create them, though not purpose-driven. Not thoughtfully, but thoughtlessly; blasting holes in our landscape so I, the privileged, can have somewhere to hide when the shelling is over. They are an accidentally useful side-effect of the words I throw at you in the heat of a moment (live ordnance meant to find its target but destined to fall short when you're so far away). Craters I slip into when the ratatat machine gun wash spatters across the muddy field or craters I find when you fire back with "Oh, so now women are responsible for this?"

"I said some women and you know it."
Foxholes.