#story fragments

[elucubrare]

Doctor Valeris gave a quick, cool press of the hand, and gestured me to a chair. “Tell me what happened,” she said, with no further preamble. I closed my eyes — on the insides of my eyelids danced scenes of glory and conquest, as they had for the past three weeks - and tilted my head back. “I’d hired out as a guard to an archaeologist up in the steppes. We spent a week riding around barrows, with nothing more than a couple of wolves to bother us. Then he reread a text or something, and pointed us further north. Have you been up there, doctor? Probably not. It’s so big. The sky, sure, but everything. No trees for a hundred miles, just you and the horse and a few mounds where no one alive has walked for three hundred years, and the wind. I remember there was one tree, though, where it shouldn’t be. It was the tallest thing there, and it felt like a mountain. An oak, tall and straight despite the wind that had scoured anything taller than a barberry bush off the face of the world. The archaeologist bent and scraped some earth off a rock between its roots. He pulled a crowbar off his horse’s equipment and pried it up. ‘After you,’ he said, and I went down. That’s when the ghost entered me.” The doctor nodded. “Let me read the statement back to you. ‘I had been entombed under the strength of oak for centuries. I had begun to fear that I would never again feel a horse surge into a gallop under me, or the wind in my hair; that I had failed the ritual; that the promises of the gods were naught but lies.’” She paused. A muscle in my jaw clenched and then relaxed, but I stayed quiet. “’At last there came a breath of fresh air: a wind from the outside, and with it, a bright spirit. Ah, I thought, the gods spoke true. I am fortunate indeed. She is my kin, and she will serve me well. She is thrice bound to me.’” The doctor waited for a response. “That’s not what I said,” I told her, firmly. “No,” Valeris responded. “But it’s what I heard."

[sunlightinjuly]

Let me hold the wound you've been walking with, from city to city, on a leash like a dog. You never look at it directly. You see it in shadows, reflections, shop windows; forever in your periphery, following you home. As I stroke your hair, I try to stroke mine. I comfort the self I see in you. I take your dog and I feed it, pat it; speak to it softly, coax it inside, until it sleeps on the couch and eats out of the palm of my hand. I have never experienced the depths of my compassion, but maybe I can show it to you now. Maybe I can show it to myself.

[mournfulroses]

Margaret Atwood, from True Stories: Poems; "Postcard," originally published in 1981

[flowerytale]

Anaïs Nin, from the short story “Elena”, Delta of Venus (published posthumously in 1977)

[sunshinesere]

Emily Henry / Funny Story

[fairydrowning]

"Well, let it pass; April is over, April is over. There are all kinds of love in the world, but never the same love twice."

– F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Short Stories

[derangedrhythms]

[...] we experienced the phenomenon that lovers who are not yet lovers recognise; they are not touching, yet they feel the charge. The space in between is filled with energy. The spark. The dance. The movement.

Jeanette Winterson, Night Side of the River; from ‘No Ghost Ghost Story’

[greatdreamlandtraveler]

4/?

You confess to your foster father your wonder of the castle above. He smiles and claps your back, curiosity is always to be encouraged. He arranges for you to go along as a temporary lady in waiting for your leaders sister. A noble woman herself, she will need extra hands to prepare for the dinner. No one looks too closely at the helps face after all.

Besides, your hair has grown since you left the Cedar Home. Changed color by an "accident" with your foster fathers dyes. Your skin weathered by sun and hard work. Even your physique has changed, muscle your reward for constant exercise.

You look like nothing they search for. Hopefully it will be enough.

Now to figure out how to spill the leaders wine without drawing attention to yourself.

Work as a lady in waiting is hard, but you manage to slip away as the banquet begins, a basket of dirty laundry as an excuse. Quickly discarded temporarily in a broom closet.

You find a balcony over the banquet hall. Empty and dark at the moment. The hall is large, a cavern hollowed into rock like the rest of the castle, the stone cool and smooth under your fingers. Stylized stone gargoyles, shaped after the native gryphons grin down at the feast. Tapestrys of the three families that share the castle flutter in the constant slight breeze, air circulated through vents by magic. You lurk in the shadow of the balcony. Waiting for the moment you can do something.

There is no plan. Honestly the best plan youve had so far is to jump down onto the middle of the table when the wine comes out, kick the poison and then run away as fast as you can.

It is a terrible plan.

But you will not allow this man to be killed.

The tapestrys sway again as another pulse of air circulates through the room-

Wait.

The tapestrys.

What if one... Fell? On the wine.

You have a bow. The cord they hang from is thick enough you could hit it. The arrow would continue across the room and go into the vent.

Everyone would think the tapestry fell due to old rope. The poison would be spilled.

You Know they only had one doseage.

This....might work.

A lot could go wrong.

But the wine is being poured and your leader is next and you're out of time.

[griefyards]

The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir // Brokeback Mountain (2005) // Moon Song, Phoebe Bridgers // The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir // A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes // A Ghost Story (2017) // The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir // Candy (2006) // Letters to Vera, Vladimir Nabokov.

[kaiserouo]

"Huh."

[elucubrare]

Give me your arms, she said. “No,” I told her. I knew that she could use them - I’d felt it a hundred times in the last month. Her little habits taking over mine: the urge to pick a passing leaf and twist it in my fingers then tear it, which I’d never had. A real desire to run, for the delight of it. Please, she said. It was the first time she’d asked and not commanded. “Why?” I want to — she broke off, but I could hear, or feel, or know the rest of it. She wanted to loose an arrow, for the first time in four hundred years. To feel the tension of the bowstring transfer through her - through my - shoulders. There was no greater plan to it, only an almost childlike want. “All right,” I said. I — stepped aside, maybe. Gave up control for a second, certainly, and I felt her step into the space I’d left her. The steppe we rode though changed. I’d seen gray-green grass and low shrubs, flat country with no landmarks, under a low gray sky. Now I saw the irso grass, which was good for weaving, and spiky tarin, which, chewed, would keep you awake, and dozens of other plants, all distinct. I saw too where the one gave into another, and knew that it meant the ground underneath was different. There were marmot holes, and fox dens, and voles running through the grass. The sky was low and cloudy, which meant it would be warm that night, or at least as warm as the steppes ever were. It was beautiful. It was — home.

[sunlightinjuly]

Glorious rooms filled with warm, honey-coloured light. That's where I witnessed his magic; the genius of his sleight of hand. He dazzled in the light and I moved in the shadows, always close behind, waiting for instruction like a domesticated pet. I made the mistake of thinking that his light could hold me too.

[mournfulroses]

Margaret Atwood, from True Stories: Poems; "Use," originally published in 1981

[flowerytale]

Leonora Carrington, from ‘The Sisters’, The Complete Stories

[project-sekai-facts]

Saki's Prayers Soaring Into the Sky 4* card and card story contains multiple references to her Abyss of Memories 4* card. Firstly, the untrained of both cards feature paper cranes. In Japan, folding 1000 paper cranes is a way for people to wish for a seriously ill person to get better, which is why they can be seen on Saki's untrained Abyss of Memories card set when she was in hospital. Folding 1000 paper cranes can also be used for any wish though, which is the purpose they serve in Saki's untrained Prayers Soaring Into the Sky card, where she wished for her songs and feelings to be able to reach Leo/need's fans.

The most obvious link between both trained cards is the bathtub. In the Abyss of Memories card, the overflowing water symbolises her (then) seemingly unending suffering, and the bath and bathroom are filled with things she wasn't able to use when she was in hospital. In her Prayers Soaring Into the Sky card, the bath is still overflowing, but is now filled with flowers. Some of these flowers include pink roses, yellow roses (symbolising friendship), and sunflowers (symbolising longevity), putting a much more positive spin on the overflowing water imagery. All 3 flowers can symbolise happiness as well.

Some other things from Saki's Abyss of Memories trained card can be spotted in her Fragment SEKAI. These include her suitcase, sunhat, and some of the paper cranes. Saki was unable to go on holiday when she was younger, hence why her unused holiday items were included in the older card. Her SEKAI being set at a holiday resort more than likely links to this idea.

[nights-at-crystarium]

Fragments Friday tomorrow!