My thanks to M'cha Araem for her absolutely wonderful comment to me, I shall try, but not in this chapter. My apologies to everyone reading this. I'm not entirely coherent after sniffing questionable substances all day while making my Dorothy slippers and am not in the greatest mind to proofread this before I put it up. Damn nagging voices telling me to keep posting chapters...
PS. There is a bad word in this chapter...sorry about it
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Mind regained as a runny white nose was shoved into my face I finished my freaking out and forced myself to calm down. This wasn't as bad as it could be. Lucky for me it didn't start raining when I thought that, as lady luck often times likes to make it do when those words are uttered.
Hold up, what is this? My attention wavered from the language differences for a moment. There was a woman riding a gazelle. Wait, where did she get a gazelle and how in the world did she train it to carry her? I certainly couldn't figure it out nor did my brain want to try. This was all a little much for it to handle, granted I was in happyville staring at all the clothing and other fun things dancing past my moving body, I was still a bit confused. I think my brain had shut down shortly after I was locked within a dark, enclosed storage room and was now hallucinating all of this.
Ignoring the woman riding the gazelle to the edge of town I continued my way looking for the friendliest face that I could find, someone here had to know how to speak English. English was universal right? I had to be optimistic and violently forced that little voice in the back of my head that insisted that no one within walking distance knew or even knew what English was to go away. Not that it ever listened but I could ignore it for the moment if I needed to, and I did because if I started listening to it I think I was going to sit down where I was and start bawling. I was not a happy camper because my trip to happyville turned out to be not so happy. It was at this moment that I noticed that lack of my big fuzzy white shadow. Now where had that horse gone off to? Ah well, not important. I supposed that it could take care of itself, after all it had before I had run into its furry nose.
It was far past afternoon and well into evening, I didn't know where I was, how I had gotten here, where I was going to stay for the night, or if anyone around could even understand a thing I said. I was near panicking again (yes I seem to do that a lot but leave me alone, I've had a hard day and you would be too if you were in my sneakers) but took a few deep breaths with my eyes closed then reverted back to my normal ways. I walked in the shadows of buildings as a barely noticeable lump of clothing and skin. I hunched my shoulders and ran a hand over anything I could find with some sort of texture to it. This, for some unknown reason always seemed to calm me and it was either that or running my nails across my arms, turning them red and raw in the process and that wasn't particularly a good thing to do at a time like this where people would certainly think that you've gone mad. Taken that I probably was mad but I just didn't usually let it show in a way that makes people want to lock you up in a straight jacket. So I resorted to numbing my fingertips on the walls and fences and other such things. People were starting to slowly trickle back to their houses or to the tavern or wherever they seemed to need to go. I stopped politely to let a woman dragging two sleepy children pass before crossing the street to a stone structure that looked as if it had seen better days. Gently I let my fingers wonder over the stones as I shuffled along.
Fire, people running, a small tingling feeling along the surface of my skin then an explosion flashed before my eyes. Flames, hurt, fear, greed in the form of a tall shadow of a man who's face flared for a moment then was lost in a mess of more flames and anger embodied in a frenzy of feathers. Then it was gone as I yanked my fingers away from the stone as if it had been heated by that same fire that had shown before me moments ago. I just stared at my fingers for a few seconds before I looked up at the stone then over at the few people still about. No one had noticed anything, not that I had expected them to, they never did see what I often saw. I touched the stone again but nothing was there this time and I knew that what I had seen had already happened. I had seen the past. I did that sometimes, but mostly with clothing. Sometimes I could stare at a mannequin that happened to be wearing an old garment and it would come to life before my eyes. A bit like the movie only not really. Everything was overlaid upon what was really there, and that was just a mannequin staring out at me with blank, plastic eyes. Puppets did that too, sometimes, but I tried not to think about it, they were scary when they did that. Not that it had mattered now that the sun was near setting, I had not eaten anything since breakfast, I had nowhere to go, I had been abandoned in a town without a comprehension of English by a big white horse and I was starting to feel sorry for myself again. I needed to stop moping and do something about my situation.
Gathering every bit of courage that I possessed and borrowing a bit from the stones I walked determinedly towards the large wooden door to the cottage that those stones belonged to...the large open door?! Carefully I peeked inside to come face to face with a thin blonde woman who looked to be as if she was going to close the door. "Oh!" I stepped back immediately and regressed with trying to blend into the scenery. The next thought that hit me was that she had been the one riding the gazelle and stepped back again. Whump. I hit something warm. Something warm and fuzzy and breathing? Spinning frantically around I found myself face to face with said Gazelle. Okay, not quite a gazelle. Not the same markings, or at least any markings that I had ever seen before. Still I wondered suspiciously how I didn't notice it there before and how it had managed to sneak up on me. I would notice something like that, especially something that big sneaking around. Eyes big, I stepped back to my previous position halfway between the horned creature and the woman that had ridden in on it. Then there came a voice, whom I assumed to be the woman, however I couldn't understand a thing said like I hadn't been able to since I had arrived here. She said something again and I just shook my head.
"Do you speak English?" I asked quietly but she only seemed confused and said something else in a language that was definitely not the same as the first as it flowed off her tongue in a peculiar rhythm of music that wasn't present in the first. I only shook my head again as she tried a third language and had the sneaking suspicion that I had some confused stupid looking expression spread across my face. It wouldn't have surprised me at least, I always somehow manage to look stupid.
The blonde just looked a bit frustrated. Then said something to the creature at my back, or it at least appeared to be directed at it.
: Do you need some help?: came a smooth voice within my head. Now any normal person would have looked around to find out who was speaking to them but when have I ever presented myself as normal? I just looked at bit worried, I had never heard that particular 'voice' in my head before and I didn't know if it was malicious like some of the others. Yes, I heard voices. And yes, some of them didn't like me too much.
: I am most definitely not malicious.:
: And how would I know that?: I thought back at it used to the voices listening in upon my thoughts.
: You cannot lie mind to mind.:
Wait. This seemed hauntingly familiar. Where had I heard that line before? Oh that's right, my favourite books. Hold up, that would have to mean that someone was speaking to me, directly into my mind because my voices tended to shy away from quoting things that I knew. Since it didn't appear to be the woman from the vague expression of exasperation upon her features so the only other likely candidate would be the not-gazelle.
So what did I do? I whirled around to face it with the question suspended in my brain.
:Of course it's me talking to you.: it came slightly annoyed. :Now do you want help or not?:
Ever so slowly I nodded, my mind not quite wanting to wrap itself around the obvious. Thunk. My brain suddenly felt as if it had been hit by a two by four and I wanted to fall over, except I was already on the ground appearing to have crumpled to the floor moments before. "Ow"
"I know it hurts but I think I have some headache potions in here that's still good"
"excuse me?!" I stared at the woman as if she had just told me politely that I had grown another head. Since when could I speak happyvillian?
"Headache potion" she pulled me to my feet and led me through the large wooden door, shutting it tightly after me. "Here, take this" she thrust a small jug into my hands which I promptly swallowed the continence of. I was used to headaches that made my brain want to explode but that didn't mean that I wanted to keep them. Slowly I let the foul tasting liquid do it's work. "I'm sorry I suppose this all must be a bit confusing but since you obviously didn't speak Valdemaran or any other language that I know and you seemed to need help of a sorts I figured that it would be best if you could tell me what you needed. So I had Delia give you the language." She told me patiently waiting for my answer to a question that I hadn't known had been asked.
My brain was having trouble functioning and was currently going into overload. Okay so the not-gazelle gave me a language...wait.. Had she said Valdemaran?!?!?!?! "excuse me?!!!!" my brow furrowed and every attempt at some sort of thought process stopped suddenly. "VALDEMAR?!?!"
"Yes" she said slowly looking quite a bit more worried for me.
"Valdemar" came the second squeak.
"Yes, Valdemar"
"excuse me?!"
"Um.." she definitely looked about as perplexed as I felt.
Valdemar. The place within my favourite books. The book I had just been reading. The coolest place ever with birdbonding hawkbrothers and spirit horses called companions. Books, they should have just been books.
"Am I delusional?" I asked suddenly aloud as she peered at me then seemed to peer through me in a creepy way that seemed to emulate me spacing out.
"I don't see any sign of you being sick if that's what you mean" she told me still with the worried look upon her.
"Fuck me, how in gods did that happen?" I quietly spoke to myself as I tended to do and used an extreamly unamerican saying as I also tended to do in times like these. (Damn me watching too many British and Irish set movies). "Um...so where exactly am I then?"
"This is Errold's Grove."
"Oh..." so this was Errold's Grove. Nice. "And you would be?"
"Oh, Keisha, I'm sorry I didn't even realize that I hadn't introduced myself" She smiled a little as I seemed to be gathering my wits and making coherent sentences. Score for me and making sentences.
A small squeak escaped. I was in a book in a fictional place talking to a fictional person. Okay I was completely insane. I mean usually I can tell the difference between a hallucination and reality but this was just crazy! This couldn't have been a hallucination and was in no way shape or form a daydream. In a way it was a little bit exciting once you got past the confusing part of it but it was also extremely scary to a person who liked control and liked to know what happened. That person happened to be me, but at least it was better than being stuck in a dark room with puppets.
"Umm......" came out as I slowly began to form working thoughts again "hi...."
She smiled at me and radiated comfort.
Okay, stop using empathy on me Keisha, it doesn't work right with me, believe me I've tried.
"My name's.." I trailed off uncertainly then restarted and offered quietly "People call me Mouse." Alright, so I have an odd nickname that I like better than my real name, get off my back about it.
"Hi" she smiled again...okay...so good so far, well except for that annoying tense silence where she wanted to know what was going on and I didn't want to tell her without her having to pry it out of me with a crowbar.
"I got lost" I finally offered which really was true, I didn't know where I was till she told me so that in my book is lost.
"I need a place to sleep." I told her too hoping to play upon the kindness of her heart and get her to offer up her cottage to me. Hey it could work and I prolly had just enough empathy to get her to feel sorry for me without her noticing. Yes I have empathy, my friends used to yell at me because when I was depressed or down I would radiate unhappy vibes and depress most of our lunch table, granted they never did yell at me when I was all happy and brought joy to them, darn freeloaders. Hey, I'm allowed to believe in weird stuff like that. I'm eccentric, remember? But right at this moment, I was hoping that she would let me stay, at least until I figured out how I got here and how in the name of molding moose livers I was going to get back.
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