Not the biggest chapter, but certainly one of the most important. Enjoy!
16: Teela and Teela'Na (or, Crossing a Drawbridge to Build Bridges)
Teela landed the lightflier ten paces exactly from the drawbridge leading to Castle Greyskull. She was alone, Adam pointedly had not offered to accompany her on this trip, knowing her well enough now to resist making the offer. Teela was silently grateful to her husband for his restraint; had he offered, she was uncertain she would have had the strength to decline his well-intentioned offer. They had no idea how The Sorceress could or would react, and there was no question her perceptions were even a hair weaker or less reliable than Orko or Cringer's, and just look at how poorly those two gentle souls had reacted. Adam did not fear for himself or for her, but neither did he care to for needless risks; if The Sorceress became so...overwhelmed by what she perceived and lashed out – hard as that might have been to believe as a possibility – Teela surely had a far better chance of both emerging unscathed and calming her down than himself. He was merely the Prince and Champion, after all, but Teela now stood as her peer as well as her daughter. Cringer had surprisingly spoken aloud to agree with this assessment, going so far as to lie down upon Adam's feet as if his bulk could weigh down the Prince sufficiently to hold him there. It was the kind of adorable little gesture Teela had seen so little of over their shared years, and she'd had to quit the room before either of them saw the tears that threatened.
So here she was: standing the drawbridge to Grayskull, at once prepared to both take – and flee from – the first step upon it.
Not that it had been an easy thing to bring herself to just this point. True there had been a multitude of smaller issues to see to, even as this trip and all it entailed had loomed large in her thoughts almost since the first realization of where she and Adam now were. Teela was honest enough with herself to admit and accept that she'd been consciously and deliberately delaying taking this step from the start; the small matters about the palace and with the King and Queen and her father and the impending Summer Court and the rest of it...all delaying coming here and speaking to...
Teela forced herself to look upwards to stare directly into the 'eyes' of the castle's skull-visage, seeing the shimmering image of the one whom she had come to see. Taking a fortifying breath, she stepped unto the drawbridge and crossed the abyss on legs whose steadiness was a complete lie.
Too soon she was across and staring into the shadow-shrouded interior of the great fortress. The urge to turn and march away flashed through her thoughts, and Teela ruthlessly crushed it 'neath an imagined boot heel; the wife of Adam and daughter of Duncan was no coward, and damn her to the Deep Shades of An'arach if she gave into such base urges now!
Teela rode this short wave of anger for all it was worth, marching forward, heedless of the sights and things that observed her from the shadows within the Elder's great fortress. Why should they merit her slightest attention, after all, when there was one there who was worth all of them and more besides?
As if guided by this singular thought, Teela instantly found herself standing within a vast yet well-lit chamber, a familiar figure seated upon a simple throne situated beneath a wide cone of pure sunlight, let into this place by a crystal occulus set into the ceiling far overhead. Teela's nerves momentarily faltered again at the sight of the woman, her hawk-shaped regalia doing nothing to hide her all-too-familiar profile.
"Greetings, Teela," the Sorceress of Grayskull welcomed, the delivery and tone deliberately flat and unrevealing.
"Greetings to you, Teela'Na," was the equally deliberate flat and unrevealing response. Teela felt a small stab of vicious satisfaction at the flash of hurt upon the Sorceress's face at this, her cheeks coloring in mild shame at the same. Adam perhaps would understand her behavior, but Artemis or her sisters? Nyssa certainly would not have hesitated to express her disappointment, Teela feeling the phantom blow upon her chin as surely as if the child was there beside her now.
Huffing a breath, Teela blinked away her tears and refocused upon the figure seated nearby. "I...apologize..." She shook her head and summoned her strength to try again. "I'm sorry, Mother. I...that was...unkind of me."
The Sorceress could feel her heart and very blood chill to become ice; she abandons her child, gives her away as if she were nothing but an inconvenience, and there the child stands and speaks as if it is she who is the one in the wrong? Shock and shame held her still, closing her throat as Teela unknowingly thrust the dagger in further. "You did as you thought best with me, and you were not...not wrong in doing so. Adam told me the tale, even though I did not ask it of him, and the years since have taught me..."
"You are wrong!" Teela'Na spat out, pushing herself off her accursed throne and closing the distance between them, her thin and weak hands encircling her daughter's strong shoulders. They were nearly of equal height, for which she was grateful as she could easily stare directly into Teela's eyes.
"Teela, I was wrong to discard you..."
She got no further as her daughter shook off her grip, and promptly enfolded her in a tight embrace. "Mother, stop," Teela whispered into her ear. "Just stop. You saved me. You know this."
"No! I could..."
Teela tightened her hold upon the other woman and forced the words from her throat, imagining beloved Nyssa or Marr standing there, silently urging her on. "You could not keep me hidden away in here without risking I would do as any child would and explore places rightly closed to the living! And what kind of life would I have had here, isolated and without the daylight? What kind of...person would I have become without father's or other's influence?
"Worse, what if some villain or mad fool had managed to discover me, never mind kidnap me from these walls?" There was no missing how her mother stiffened in her arms, her own hold on her tightening for a moment. This must have been a special fear of her's and Teela cursed, at whom she was unsure, for causing the woman such distress. Another curse was directed at herself as she needed to press on, the curse itself giving her strength and surity to do just that. "You and I both know what would have come of that possibility: you would have surrendered this castle and all that is within to save me."
Teela'Na shook her head in denial, itself a denial of the truth of her daughter's words. She couldn't bring herself to vocalize the lie, but this was unneeded for Teela to hear it herself.
"You would!" Teela insisted, softening her voice and tone so her heart could be heard in her words. "What mother could do otherwise?" she asked retorically. "Think what would have come if you had abandoned the castle, Mother. What then? Skeletor or some other fool would surely have the Elders in their hands, leading Eternia to darkness and worse, and not even Adam could have hoped to lead it back to light!" Teela felt her mother's tears upon her shoulder, her own dampening the latter's own gown. Terrible as these truths were, there was a final one that needed be spoken so all doubts were dispelled.
"And if you did not surrender to them, what would you...could you have done to secure this place and its power? You and I know there is but one course you could take."
"No!" Teela'Na denied again. "I would never have..."
"Yes, Mother," Teela said. "You would robbed them of their hostage and any hold they might have exercised...by removing me yourself."
Teela said all this with quiet and gentle voice, the truth of the words undeniable. It held no accusation, was devoid of rancor and rage, was so clear and calm in the saying Teela'Na would in time ponder from what source was her daughter's certainty, and feel her blood chill to ice as she did.
"How you must hate me..." Teela'Na whispered, throat tight with self-disgust. Now it was Teela's turn to tighten her hold, marshalling a lifetime of love and forgiveness and projecting it into that touch.
"All that I am, all that I have lived and loved, is from you. Tell me how I could I ever hate that, for I do not know how!"
The Sorceress of Grayskull, holding of knowledge and wisdom accumulated across millennia and ages untold, had no answer for her. She could only hold her daughter to her, seeking to communicate a lost lifetime of longing, of love, of regret, of forgiveness, and finally, acceptance. She felt the same radiate through her child's arms into her, and, possibly for the first time in her existence, Teela'Na felt content that all was right.
Time might has stood still for them, or flowed away in the blink of one eye, but in time Teela took a new breath and steeled herself, holding her mother back at arm's length. "Mother? Two favors, please?"
The Sorceress was prepared to agree instantly, but something in her daughter's stance cautioned her, if only for the latter's own peace of mind. "What favors, Teela?"
"First, may I see you without your regalia?" Such an odd and simple request, the Sorceress could not divine why it brought such tension to Teela. She simply disengaged herself from Teela's loose and shaky grip and took a single step back, then closed her eyes and with the smallest exercise of will dismissed her hawk-visage robes and headpiece. She noted Teela had likewise closed her eyes, looking as if she were holding herself in place by sheer will.
"Teela?" Teela'Na called to her, puzzled and quickly alarmed at the tears and shakes that overcame her daughter at a single glance. Teela spun on her heel and pressed both hands to her mouth, seemingly to forestall some outburst or exclamation. The Sorceress held herself in place, though not without some difficulty, waiting with great patience as Teela mastered herself.
"Fuh...forgive me, Mother," Teela sniffed wetly, torso heaving and still unable to turn back that they could see each other's eyes. The Sorceress suspected her daughter wise in this, her every nerve-ending fairly screaming for her to move forward and embrace her. Just as well she did not as Teela's next words, hushed and sobbing with unshed tears, were like a double-hammer blow to both her heart and head.
"You...are the perfect twin of your youngest granddaughter."
The Sorceress of Grayskull stood there, shock and sadness combining to hold her upright. Those things were likewise all that kept her from fainting dead away at the realizations that immediately came crashing into her conscious mind.
Yes, she'd suspected that Adam and Teela had both been taken from their bodies, but she'd not dared ponder how long and far their journey might have actually been. Her briefly looking in upon them through scrying pool, and still briefer communication via telepathy had hinted at much, but left it all unsaid in her privately desperate hope that those hints were, if not incorrect, then merely exaggerated.
Teela's simple declaration of grandchildren, however, demolished all those empty hopes and left her staggering at her weakness. She hadn't let herself think, never mind believe what her intuition had alerted her to from the start, simply because she had not wanted to believe it true. And she had been arrogant enough to think she had rid herself of such egotism and delusions years upon years ago.
Such was her momentary distraction that she entirely missed Teela's next words. "I...I'm sorry?" Teela'Na stumbled in a nearly-strangled voice.
For her part, Teela didn't seem the slightest upset at having to repeat "I said her name was...is...Ty'ryes. In the language we spoke then it means 'She of The Seas'." There was a ragged breath after this, though Teela's voice regained its calm and clarity when she said "She was born when we ended our journeys and settled ourselves at the edge of a great sea." There was a gasp of a laugh with this statement, apparently at some related memory or image. It was a welcome sound, and Teela'Na felt her heart finally warm for the first time that day.
"What was she like?" she dared asking. "Was she..."
"She..." Teela began, only to stop herself and frown. It was an expression of deep thought, one which The Sorceress knew full well from her quiet and unknown observations of her daughter's youth. "She was...quiet, studious. She had no urge to go play with other children. She preferred to watch, and read, and move all on her own. There were those who called her 'Uthy-Verwi', the Solitary Mariner."
"What became of her?"
"What becomes of all flesh," Teela stated calmly. "She took to the seas herself and lived her life to the full there." Teela'Na placed a hand upon her daughter's shoulder, not daring more. This was sufficient to prompt Teela to look at her with a beneficent smile all her own and add "It was her children who returned her to us in a fleet of nine great ships, each commanded by her son or daughter. How we panicked at the sight of them coming from over the horizon, save Nyssa, of course."
"Nyssa being another granddaughter?"
"Oh yes, the only one to live to see her own great-grandchild to be born. I've often wondered if the only reason she never followed her siblings to the afterlife was simply because she enjoyed bullying her father and I so much."
"Nyssa..." Teela'Na mused, wondering if Adam or Teela were fully familiar with the connotations behind that name.
"Oh, mother," Teela laughed again. "You would have adored her from the first."
"Oh?"
"Aye, and for the reasons I see that in frown you seek to hide." Teela'Na's cheeks colored at her daughter's perceptiveness.
"Will you..." Her breath hitched at the unasked question. Teela however read it clearly.
"I will tell you as much as both day and night allows." Her lips quirked a little as she added "Adam has given me a royal directive I'm to return to the palace no earlier than dusk tomorrow; and I dare not refuse nor disobey him in this."
"Oh?" was the Sorcerss' amused response.
"Aye again," Teela nodded, likewise well amused. "His sanction for disobedience is one…one that I dare not invite." Her grin became sly and salacious. "At least not if I wish to be able to sit myself anywhere for the next fortnight without being reduced to tears, that it!"
"Surely not," Teela'Na giggled, only to sober and frown as only mothers might.
"Truth," Teela nodded seriously, her mad grin doing nothing to detract from the absolute sincerity of her worlds. "Mark me on this, Mother: no threat from you nor Father could or would dissuade him in this. Nor should it, given our, um, familiar nature now."
"Forgive me, daughter, if I overlook that last part and just accept the warning as genuine."
"Forgiven," Teela nodded, immensely relieved that she would not be required to take a stand between her husband and parents.
"What was the other favor?" the Sorceress asked.
"Eh?"
"You asked of two favors, before we became so distracted," she reminded Teela calmly. "What was the second?"
"Ah, thank you, mother. I'd actually forgotten there." Teela's manner went from amusement to anxiety in barely an eye-blink, leaving the Sorceress equally anxious.
"I would ask..." Teela started, faltered, then started again. "Mother, please look upon me and see...all."
The Sorceress frowned. "All of what, Teela?"
"Me," was Teela's simple answer, and all at once Teela'Na's sight and senses were swamped every bit as thoroughly as Orko and Cringer's were. Unlike those two, however, the Sorceress of Grayskull drew upon years of discipline and training to control the onslaught to her senses, both mystical and mundane. The sense of discerning what is with what was proved less severe as a result; marginally less severe at best, but no less jarring to the nerves and heart.
"By the Ancients..." the Sorceress breathed as she witnessed the totemic pictography that writhed and slid over her daughter's skin was perfectly clear and distinct upon her skin as if it were an ordinary tattoo. She recognized the figure, oddly relieved at Teela's choice of totem as something reasonably familiar, even if the style and execution of it was horrifically primitive and unaccomplished.
"It was Adam," Teela stated.
"Eh?"
"It was Adam who inscribed this upon me, not three days past." Teela offered a wry grin. "I didn't...I couldn't trust my hands to do this properly lest I might, er, succumb to..."
The Sorceress held up a hand, her other covering her mouth in suitably matronly shock. "Say no more, please! There are things a mother, and an absentee one, doesn't need to envision happening to her daughter."
"Agreed!" Teela breathed emphatically, causing Teela'Na to make a mental note to ask if any of the children took after their mother in that respect. She pocketed that thought away for the moment and turned her attention back to Teela's aural presence.
It was...impressive...if nothing else. Her pictoral foci was most definitely alive, moreso than any modern equivalent she'd come across in this era. Its constant movement denoted great energies were harnessed there, and the fact the air about Teela remained still and cool bespoke a control of that same power that could not easily be matched. The Sorceress was mildly amazed the castle and its unseen inhabitants had deigned to grant Teela entrance, blazing as she surely was to them.
"I'm surprised as well, mother," Teela agreed, doubtless having read the thought clearly from her expression. Duncan had more than once noted how daughter followed mother in that regard. "I honestly didn't know until I set foot upon the drawbridge whether I would be granted admission here."
"And if you weren't?" the Sorceress queried, curious as to her response.
"I...don't know. Probably sat down and waited until the elders stopped being stubborn about it."
Teela'Na found herself envisioning Teela doing exactly that, likely with Adam joining her before the next morning. There was no clearer sign of their shared maturity and advanced age, and Teela'Na couldn't help but feel a bit saddened by the realization of it.
"There was a time not long past when you would not have been so patient awaiting another's judgment."
"Not long past here, Mother. But long, long past...where we were." Teela nodded, grinning if a little melancholy. "The price for learning that patience was a stiff forfeit, but one I and Adam both bore."
"Yes, Adam..." The Sorceress frown slightly as some thought apparently struck her. "Does he bear similar markings?" It was not unheard of for sorceresses of Teela's like to have such mates, and the ongoing silence from the Elders on these matters had been a concern of her's from the start. That those immaterial ancients had not yet spoken or even offered vague sign of their opinion of these developments left the Sorceress by turns nervous and reconciled; Marlena's occasionally voiced adage of "no news is good news" rang true in this respect.
"Scars, yes. But he…Adam was never bound to me as I am…" Teela stopped herself, but the damage was already done. Teela'Na frowned at both the admission and the implications. Before she could ask, no, demand to know more, Teela turned to the side and tugged her left ear to the side, allowing her mother to see what so few others either did or could, and steeled herself against some verbal onslaught.
Instead, her mother whispered "A soul's cutting?" Her fingertips brushed the seemingly unmarked skin just behind the ear, where the mark had once been and still was.
There was awe in the words, even reverence there, something Teela was decidedly not expecting. The Scaled Horde always reacted with fear at the smallest glance of the mark, something she'd used to her benefit across the ages, while Adam's band of 'Brothers didn't ever seem to appreciate the significance of it and made scant mention in noticing it. There were others, that hag Weaver among them, who noticed and appeared affected by it, but none reacted as her mother did there.
"So precise," the Sorceress breathed. "Who…who did this?"
"Again it was Adam, but this was at my direction."
"Is he marked as well?"
"In a sense, but not as I am," Teela admitted. "I, uh, didn't entirely trust myself or my focus at the time, and there never seemed a proper moment for it afterwards."
"Yet you trusted Adam to cut into you?" Now there was a touch of incongruity to the words, a touch of something more dangerous that Teela emphatically did not want coloring future interactions between her mother and themselves. Adam would take whatever criticism or abuse was directed upon by others as had always been his way; that didn't mean Teela would calmly stand by now allow it to go without a like response!
Teela quickly turned and took her mother's hand into both of her's. "Yes, mother. I trusted him then, and I trust him now! We took this step because…because we needed to do so then." She gazed into her mother's eyes full on, a silent plea for acceptance communicated between them. "It was my choice, mother, then as now. Please…please don't make…"
Her mother surprised her once more, pulling her hand free and embracing Teela tight. "I envy you, daughter," she murmured, Teela shocked to silence at the admission. "I never…there was never anyone who I could…who could be your Adam's equal."
All Teela could do was return the embrace, and revel in the connection of touch her older body had long ago grown used to…and weary of.
The light coming from the great oculus dimmed slightly when they finally separated. Both their stomachs also chose that moment to each issue an audible growl, providing both women with a much needed chuckle. "Hungry?"
"Very."
The two joined hands and walked off to the small yet comfortable rooms where Teela'Na would take her meals and her rest. There they would talk through the remainder of the daylight, and long into the night.
Many things were discussed, many more stories told, and secrets that are the sole providence of mothers and daughters were shared.
Nothing more will be said of all this, because it quite frankly is nobody else's business but theirs.
Because her Prince had allotted Teela had only two days with which to speak with her mother, and because Teela was a loyal retainer of Her Prince and his house, the daylight was beginning to wane when she next approached the just-lowered drawbridge linking the castle with the outside world. Her mother was close behind her, stopping just short of the threshold.
Teela was about to step onto the bridge when a look of puzzlement crossed her face, her nose wrinkling in distaste. Turning to face her mother directly, Teela quietly asked "In my visits to Grayskull in the past, have there been any where the memory has been removed?"
The Sorceress, conscious that there might be eavesdroppers nearby, answered equally quietly "Why do you ask?"
"I'm not angry," Teela hastily assured her. "I merely…" The Sorceress waited as the younger woman quickly organized her uncharacteristically scattered thoughts. "Do you smell anything odd here?"
The Sorceress could only blink her surprise, but immediately sniffed the air and shook her head. "I'm sorry, but no."
"Odd," Teela murmured, shaking her head. "I thought I caught a whiff of something…something…" She frowned and contemplated for a moment, then shook herself again and set it aside. "I must be getting old," she smiled.
"Rubbish," the Sorceress mock-shuddered in response. "Wait until you reach my age, girl!"
Teela raised an eye-brow towards her, meeting her gentle mockery with some of her own asking with something straddling the line between tired-indulgence and outright disrespect, her obvious grin putting a lie to such sentiments. "May I look as grand at 10,000 years as you!"
The Sorceress sniffed rudely. "One must have dreams, I suppose."
"Only if you sleep through the day, I'm sure," Teela ground out, keeping her impending laughter locked tight in her throat. "You'll communicate, I trust?" It was the question of a daughter who sounded entirely too big for her proverbial britches, arrogance and entitlement rolled into one; Teela'Na wondered if she'd practiced the tone beforehand or if she was just emulating something that she'd been subjected to over the years. Either way, her delivery was positively theatrical, bordering on farce.
"We will see," the Sorceress hissed through a tight smile, her daughter's cheeks coloring in silent revelry in the inherent silliness of this whole exchange. She could only imagine how adversarial it must have appeared to outsiders. Thankfully she herself was still in the shadows, and wore her regalia once more, both affording her adequate cover.
"You had best go," she told her daughter. "Prince Adam might well have fallen down a well or something in your absence."
"True enough," Teela agreed. "Hopefully his tiger has done as I instructed and sat upon him…"
"You did what?"
"Nothing for you to be concerned over, Sorceress," Teela stated. "I'm sure the Prince has kept himself…busy." A dark look clouded her face suddenly. "At least, he'd better have been…"
The Sorceress refrained from commenting, but only through considerable effort that so consumed her attention that she barely noticed Teela's departure. No doubt to the outside world, it looked as if the Captain of the Guard of the Palace of Eternos was marching with dire intent away from Castle Grayskull, her expression suitably furious for some unknown slight or upset. She all but leapt into the lightflier and started it up as quickly as standard flight prep would allow. Whether the source of her fury was behind or before her, only the most foolish of souls would have dared attempt to impede her flight.
Within the shadow-shrouded darkness of Grayskull, the Sorceress stood and stared as the drawbridge closed once more. Within the darkness of her mind flashed a singular thought that warmed her soul and heart as never before.
Thank you, Mother. I'll return soon.
Content and at peace, Teela'Na returned to the great throne room and re-took her place there, eyes closing as she allowed her meditations to lift her spirits from her flesh and into the warmth beyond.
Thus she missed how something of great note, and still greater consequence, took place elsewhere in the castle's depths at that same moment.
It was such a simple thing: what appeared to be an unremarkable lock set into an unremarkable door – albeit a lock that no key forged by mortal hands could hope to undo, and the door itself was in fact forged of a substance easily the weight of hundred thousand Eternia-sized planets – suddenly unlatched and the door creaked open slightly, then moved no further.
The shadows beyond that door moved and surged, invisible to any mortal eye, where one in particular slithered out past the door and was quickly consumed by the darkness of the corridors.
Then there was nothing but silence, and darkness…and the dim glow that lay just beyond the door, waiting patiently to be noticed by those who would hear its soft, siren's call.
De author seez: okay, that's it for the time being. Hope you all enjoyed the updates. I need to take a little break and catch up on other projects. Next chapter will be along in awhile...I hope. All depends upon what kind of inspiration hits.
Reviews are always welcome. Flames most definitely are not. See you soon!