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31_days2009-08-25 06:32 pm
cofmanynames.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2009-08-25 06:32 pm
[August 25] [Original] Wheel to the Storm
Title: Wheel to the Storm
Day / Theme: August 25 -- memories are films about ghosts
Rating: PG13 / mild R
Series: Original (end of LEC Era Two)
Characters: Libris, Alici
Summary: The end of that bit. Her book is accurate again.
Notes: I kind of love this one. I'm a sucker for my LEC work, really. We now have a pattern of era-ends having Cassidy-reference titles.
I’ve got the scissors all the way open – fingers almost coming apart to hold them like that, just enough that I’m only nicking the sides of her neck. Somewhat strange-looking blood. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even look reproachful.
Her voice is low and I can catch the idea that I’m not in my right mind. Wrong. This is my right mind (left? Utterly correct, at any rate). She’s only seen it a few times before.
Sting of memory, like a mosquito bite. I hated mosquitoes, before.
“Libris.” That same voice. I know, I noticed that I am me (feels like a shallow sort of static and under that coiled intent. I am closer to it, yes, but even now it’s not something I can keep up, have to be a hair’s width away or even more, this feels so good) and if she’s going to state the obvious... I don’t remember what comes after that. “It’s me. Alici. You may want to think about what you’re doing – remember.”
“Remember what?” and my fingers twitch. She doesn’t react, maybe she’s not human after all. One can hope.
“Yesterday and last week and the month before that. Think.” She’s good and she has practice at pulling me away from that edge but she’s never met me before, just seen me from sideways, through glass and possibly skin.
“I don’t believe in the past,” I say roughly and it’s not a twitch this time and I’m sorry to say that she was probably some kind of human after all, under all that, just a demo for a new variety, I should know, I checked.
- - -
The compass is in my hand. That’s not important.
I can kind of taste the way she saw things from the other side, washed out and over with gray. And no smells or tastes, really, sounds muted and flat. I remember being alive and finding that sort of thing appealing.
I – she – was an idiot, a long time ago, if there really is a past.
(I never hallucinate anymore, not even those weak and tolerated ones known as dreams, so I suppose there may be after all.)
But thinking about her is not going to help me any, so I carefully take my mind and empty it of anything at all – I can do that – until the compass needle spins. I walk a bit longer, just to be safe.
It tells me the differences and I smile; that’s right. I need it no longer and toss it away; in the split second before it leaves my hand I see who will pick it up so now I know who to look for.
My book is accurate once again and I am glad, if I can be glad.
I think I can stand to stay here for a while.
Day / Theme: August 25 -- memories are films about ghosts
Rating: PG13 / mild R
Series: Original (end of LEC Era Two)
Characters: Libris, Alici
Summary: The end of that bit. Her book is accurate again.
Notes: I kind of love this one. I'm a sucker for my LEC work, really. We now have a pattern of era-ends having Cassidy-reference titles.
I’ve got the scissors all the way open – fingers almost coming apart to hold them like that, just enough that I’m only nicking the sides of her neck. Somewhat strange-looking blood. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even look reproachful.
Her voice is low and I can catch the idea that I’m not in my right mind. Wrong. This is my right mind (left? Utterly correct, at any rate). She’s only seen it a few times before.
Sting of memory, like a mosquito bite. I hated mosquitoes, before.
“Libris.” That same voice. I know, I noticed that I am me (feels like a shallow sort of static and under that coiled intent. I am closer to it, yes, but even now it’s not something I can keep up, have to be a hair’s width away or even more, this feels so good) and if she’s going to state the obvious... I don’t remember what comes after that. “It’s me. Alici. You may want to think about what you’re doing – remember.”
“Remember what?” and my fingers twitch. She doesn’t react, maybe she’s not human after all. One can hope.
“Yesterday and last week and the month before that. Think.” She’s good and she has practice at pulling me away from that edge but she’s never met me before, just seen me from sideways, through glass and possibly skin.
“I don’t believe in the past,” I say roughly and it’s not a twitch this time and I’m sorry to say that she was probably some kind of human after all, under all that, just a demo for a new variety, I should know, I checked.
- - -
The compass is in my hand. That’s not important.
I can kind of taste the way she saw things from the other side, washed out and over with gray. And no smells or tastes, really, sounds muted and flat. I remember being alive and finding that sort of thing appealing.
I – she – was an idiot, a long time ago, if there really is a past.
(I never hallucinate anymore, not even those weak and tolerated ones known as dreams, so I suppose there may be after all.)
But thinking about her is not going to help me any, so I carefully take my mind and empty it of anything at all – I can do that – until the compass needle spins. I walk a bit longer, just to be safe.
It tells me the differences and I smile; that’s right. I need it no longer and toss it away; in the split second before it leaves my hand I see who will pick it up so now I know who to look for.
My book is accurate once again and I am glad, if I can be glad.
I think I can stand to stay here for a while.