Judy

Aquila says: It could be worse. There was this one game I got-also Square-where I never actually figured out how to work the battle system at all. Despite hours of effort and reading the guide pamphlet thing. In the end I said bollocks and returned it to the store.
Ash says: Unlimited Saga?
Aquila says: That's the one. I'd forgotten the name till you said it.
Ash says: I had the same problem.
Ash says: Shame, cuz it looked good.
Aquila says: My theory is it's another xenophobic world. The characters are like, 'WE DO NOT WANT PEOPLE LOOKING AT US. GO AWAY.' So they are Obstructive, and Complicate Simple Matters in a successful bid to make people storm off in frustration.
Ash says: Or maybe they were dying for their story to be told, and the developers fucked up, and they're sitting around waiting for visitors and wondering "why doesn't anyone like us?"
Aquila says: I like your version better. That little witch girl seemed sweet, come to think.
Ash says: Yeah.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Her location is not marked on any map.

The labyrinth is an egg that she failed to hatch from. The labyrinth is the womb of a dead mother. The labyrinth is a school with no pupils but her, and it is the endless silvery dimensions behind the mirror.

Grandfather was trapped in a mirror, Judy thinks. I have to save him. But grandfather is not here.

Maybe if she walks the labyrinth long enough, she will find him. Maybe if she walks without stopping, checks every door and passage, she will reach the way out.

She is very tired, and her little hands are cold.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Her companions are three familiars that patter behind her in the dust. They do not speak, and they are cold to the touch. As she is cold.

She has a memory that this is not what she was promised. Things have not always been like this. Once she was warm, and sheltered, and a mother-voice whispered to her of games, and adventures, and other children all in sunlight. It told her stories that made her laugh, and dance in anticipation. They were not fantasies. They were truths. Prophecies.

Prophecy is dead now. Stillborn. Miscarried.

Her existence now is not Life. Neither is it Truth.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Sometimes she sobs, but tears never fall. She thinks that tears might make her feel better. They would be hot, she thinks; salty and hot and wet. She might be warm, if she could cry.

Maybe tears would wipe clean the dust that clings to her, her hair, her clothes. She is covered in grey. She cannot remember the colour of her skin. She has a few vague ideas about it; are people brown, or pink, or blue? And what did colours look like, anyway?

Purple was nice, she thinks. She thinks she remembers wanting to be purple.

Judy walks the labyrinth. Sometimes she remembers things. She remembers a breaking, a hot, bright world glimpsed for a few, precious seconds, and then, the labyrinth again, cooling slowly.

She is a genius, she thinks. Is that right, that word ‘genius’? She’s quite sure that she is one, as much as she is sure of anything. But she can’t quite remember what a genius is.

Perhaps ‘genius’ means grey, and cold, and solitary. Perhaps ‘genius’ means dust that falls into her mouth and nose, unfocused vision, and slow, muzzy mind.

She isn’t sure that she likes being a genius, but she has got to be something. She clutches to the word, because it describes herself, and she does not have many words that describe herself. If she cannot describe herself to her, then maybe she does not exist. And she does not have many words at all.

She was going to have words, she thinks. Words, and numbers, and colours. They were in the promise. But the promise never came true.

And unkept promises fade.

(A/N: No, I have no fucking clue where this came from...)

Starry, starry night

I love how it gets dark early in winter, and I love Christmas lights. Not the tacky reindeer and Santa sort so much, but fairy lights.

There's frosty blue ones in the trees in the Market Square, and golden ones in the restaurant in the Conservatory Village. Multicoloured ones just about everywhere. They remind me of stars-it's been cloudy recently, but tonight there were some of those visible too, as well as a very bright full moon.

It's like at this dark nub of the year we feel the need to pull down heaven like a blanket, borrow a bit of starfire to warm ourselves up. Athene was talking about how she can't get used to Christmas in Atlanta, where it's all sunny and bright but people put out elaborate light shows anyway; what's the point? Atlantans must amuse themselves however they can, I suppose, and there are worse ways, but I agree with Athene, for what it's worth.

I was sitting and eating dinner in the restaurant at the Conservatory Village just a few hours ago, looking out of the window into the darkness with the reflections of the gold fairy lights on it, and thinking of Indra's net. That's the other thing stars remind me of, stars and fairy lights both; that infinite shimmering mesh of golden beads, all linked.

There are many worlds, and they don't all share the same sky-I've known that since I was tiny. Lucy Pevensie talked about the Narnian constellations-'dear old Leopard!' she said, seeing it again after a sojourn in the world of her birth, away from her kingdom. The stars were different there. But she was a world-traveller, and all the worlds are linked, regardless. More recently I heard Haras-uquara talk of a million lights reflected in a million mirrors, and that's the way of the worlds, she said, that you can't tell which are real; all are, or none. We pass from reflection to reflection. And though not all worlds have the same stars, I can't think of any that have no stars. Presumably there's some that do...but then, I'd wager they have something else just as good.

And all the worlds came, ultimately, from the same place. I believe this; one word spoken, a fount of gold. B'raishith...

So maybe, just maybe, they do share one destiny.

It's hard if not impossible-probably impossible-to know for sure, but when the lights glitter you can't help wondering.

What I do know is that this is here, and I am me, and this is here because it has a position in the 'Verse, it is linked to everywhere else, and I am me for the same reason. And I am very small, but I have friends in many places, and time to sip tea and look at the stars.