6-14-2015
Hauling several suitcases behind her, most of them large, all of them labeled with signs on the side, Toriana manages to slowly drag herself and her luggage over the door jamb to a cobweb festooned desk. Pulling out some cleaning supplies and starting to use them, she looks around the mostly empty room. Clearing her throat a little awkwardly, she addresses the room, peering at the shadowy corners in case there's anyone listening. "Well, I am very sorry that I've been away for 18 months, but, I assure you, it was not my decision. I not only got mugged by real life, he then proceeded to back up the truck and run me over. Several Times." She indicates the suitcases piled to one side. Now some of the labels are more visible, reading things like "Deceased Nephew", "Family Feud", "Buried Brother-In-Law", and "Mother Loses Job, now I must support 2 households.". "And besides all that, my story "Going Swimming is now screaming at me "You are NOT through with me, you need to go back and revise Here and Here and Here! Oh, and you forgot to put THIS in!"" She sighs and grips her long hair in both hands. "I give up. I'm putting "Cosmic" on Hiatus, and, will start posting the "Director's Cut Of Going Swimming." Tonight is Chapter 1 - Let's see if people like it.
Going Swimming
Suppose, just for fun, that instead of the Christian milquetoast Christine of the Leroux novel, Christine was raised to worship the Old Germanic Gods, Odin, Thor, Freya, and the rest of the pantheon? {Please note –even today, there are many versions of Asatru – I DO NOT know that this version is the "real way".}Meek and submissive is NOT part of this version of Asatru, in fact, the more skillfully you can fight (or, if you are a bard, perform), the more you are respected in this culture. Now, where there are warriors, there are usually scars, so it's pretty logical that a few (or even a lot) of scars would not be considered a disfiguration.
Supposition # 2 – Suppose Christine, while still with her family, was used to swimming whenever and wherever possible, even when the water was not what we would call warm. After all, Sweden has LOTS of coastline, and not a lot of truly warm weather. Or naturally warm water, for that matter.
Chapter 1 - In The Dark
Erik (No-Last-Name) was standing, alone, in the darkest cellar of the Shah of Persia's newly built palace. Not that this fact bothered him. Erik liked the dark, truth be told, more than the light. It was not just that his eyes were almost as good as a cat or a wolf when it came to seeing in a low level of light. It was that, in the dark, no-one, including Erik himself, could see the ruined half-face that Erik had been born with.
In all truth, though Erik would never know it, this birth defect was due to four pre-natal factors. First, his mother's half-wild stray "pet" cat had gifted her with Trichinosis. Second, the grain shortage in her village had resulted in her eating bread made from grain infected with Ergot. And most importantly, his mother had taken to the bottle after her husband had passed on, and she really did not want to be pregnant in the first place. But Erik 's deformity turned his mother against him specifically (which quite often manifested violently) starting the moment she laid eyes on her less than perfect offspring. Nor was she the only one to react negatively.
In the light, strong men had turned pale, or laughed nervously, or looked away, or any one of a hundred other irritating reactions. Even the Shah was not immune. Women's reactions did not vary much from most men's reactions either, except that they tended more towards screaming, crying, or fainting. Even though Erik wore a half-mask much of the time (a habit forced on him very young since his lush of a mother was inclined to screaming hysteria whenever she saw him bare-faced), there were only two people, in his whole twenty-four years, who could look at Erik straight on and still carry on a normal conversation.
And one of those, the priest whom Erik was named after, had died when he was seven years old. Devastated by the loss of his one real friend, Erik hadn't really struggled when his mother had sold him off to a passing set of gypsies (for the price of several gallons of absinthe, her favorite tipple.) Until he was slammed in a cage and displayed like an animal. By then it was too late to do anything but survive, and learn from observation. He had never left that same cage for more than a few minutes at a time in what turned into almost six very long and pain-filled years.
Erik reflected, more than a bit glumly, that now that the palace was completely finished, and his final inspection of the place was over, he really needed to leave Persia. He had had a few years by now to figure out how the Shah's mind tended to work.
The Shah, and, more frightening still, the Shah's bloodthirsty, overly-indulged, crazy (though it was suicide to say so out loud) mother, would soon figure that if Erik was dead, the secret ways around the palace would be theirs alone to command. Although, Erik was not stupid enough to tell them all the passages he'd arranged, still - it was time to start thinking about where he should go next.
For some reason, what came to mind, over and over again, was the Paris Opera House, the place he had left at the age of sixteen. He had hidden there, scuttling about in the lower levels and basement rooms like a rat, scrounging or thieving meals, or clothes, books, or anything else he had needed, for almost five years before he had decided to try to live like a person, interacting with society. His naive, sixteen year old self had thought it would be an adventure, and, for a year or so, his life had been just that. Then the Shah had heard about him, and Erik had swiftly been issued an offer he couldn't refuse, unless he wanted to die painfully right in the central square of the little town that the travelling fair he had currently been with was in.
Looking back on that half-civilized child, Erik felt a touch of sympathy for his younger self. He had come so far mentally that the waif seemed almost a stranger. The only thing he would regret leaving behind was his friend Nadir, the rest of the over-indulged Persian nobility were merely acquaintances. He had to admit, at least to himself, that the Middle Eastern architecture was stunning, but, as for the music here, having heard really good Opera for five years, he seemed to have developed a preference for that. And the food! Some of those spices could burn your tongue off. In fact, the Shah's mother had a few favorite tortures that started with just that . . . No, better not to dwell on such subjects just now.
Erik nodded to himself. Yes, he would take his not-so-small fortune (at least the Shah paid him well, although he had already converted most of the gold coins he was being paid with into gems so that they would be more portable when he left) and go back to Paris, and then? Well, he would decide once he got there. Now he just had to figure out a plan that left him outside the borders of Persia with his hide still intact.
(Chapter 1 and well begun – Please read and review. Note to those who have read the original version of this, no, I am not really changing the basic story so much as adding in some of the scenes and lines that I wasn't brave (or imaginative) enough to insert the first time out – let's call this the unabridged edition.)