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 Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 10:14 am
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05 april 2016 1730
ashdown outskirts
The hiss came low and violently from behind the wheel. Fingers still gripped bone-white to it, knuckles alight with tendon pressure, muscles locked in rigor. His head pounded, his eye stung. He blinked away tears that painted his vision red in his right eye. Part of his leg grew numb; he felt certain he couldn’t move it. All fits of tugs pointed to an obstruction around his ankle - one that he knew with certainty he’d be feeling later. His dog whimpered, more from fear than physical injury. Finally Alois found his voice.
„Fffffuuuuuuuck,“ he growled through clenched teeth. Conscious willpower unlatched one of his hands from the wheel. He pressed palm to forehead and wiped, finding blood smears on the back of his hand. Maybe they were something to worry about, maybe they weren’t - he couldn’t tell blood volume to injury severity. He didn’t care to. Adrenaline wicked away most sensation of damage; perhaps his entire frontal lobe was destroyed and what he now witnessed was a reenactment of his remaining logic faculties.
Or, perhaps more likely, he could be stranded in the middle of nowhere after hitting a deer at 65 miles per hour.
The car, a banged-up 2008 Chevy Cruise in an unimaginative and unoriginal silver finish, was completely totaled. The damage done by the deer to the grill, outright broken inward and spattered with blood and meat as it was, hardly compared to the concrete divider that tore away part of the driver’s side quarter panel. Steam rose from the front of the car, where the water pump likely busted. Perhaps his radiator was trashed, too. And hell, why not the timing belt too? It looked ready to give out before Alois even started his journey.
Finally Alois unbuckled his seatbelt (which worked as intended, unlike in the movies), and tried his door. Predictably, the heavy damage to the driver’s side prevented him from getting anywhere with prying it open. Briefly he considered shoulder checking it, or breaking the glass. Instead, he carefully shifted himself from his seat, and pulled his foot free from the partially collapsed console. He paused to feel for broken bones, and while it responded tenderly, he found nothing loose. Carefully he climbed over the shifting column, across the passenger’s seat, and opened the door to a shaky landing on asphalt.
What he found before him wasn’t promising.
WELCOME TO ASHDOWN
Population: 29xx#######
The rest of the sign looked too worn away from disuse to display the remaining numbers. Grasses and weeds grew tall around the two rusted metal posts to which the once-green sign was secured. All reflective layering wore away from the years of weather abuse. At first glance, it looked like Ashdown felt no concern over how it appeared to the outside world, which suggested a population of xenophobic rednecks with nothing better to do than shoot beer cans off of fences and teeth out of strangers.
„Because it couldn’t be Miami, or Los Angeles, or even Mexico City. No, I had to wreck my car in shithole east-coast-lifer hell.“ He sighed, and all kinds of pain stirred to greet him.
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Posted: Mon May 30, 2016 10:51 am
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21 april 2016 1623
motel ashdown
„Woowoowoo,“ complained Schatzie, for the seventh time within the hour.
„Yes, I know this is total bullshit. I don’t want to wait nine more days to move into a ******** apartment. I don’t want to waight nine more hours in this ******** brothel of biohazards. If I sleep another night in that bed I’m going to catch syphilis without ever having sex. What would you even call that? Immaculate infection?“
„Woooo.“
„Will you shut the hell up already?“ Alois shot his dog an exasperated look as he leaned back on the old wooden chair. It grew finicky over holding weight, Alois learned, in all the prior weeks spent tipping back on the chair and finding himself hitting the floor unexpectedly. Now it featured a bum leg where part of the wood snapped off, more from a defect in the quality of wood used rather than any mischief enacted by Alois himself. „I told you I’d walk you when I was done with this email. I hate writing to people. I hate writing in English. Why does everything just look wrong when you write in English… I don’t even see why I have to write an email in the first place. Why can’t I just call this b*****d landlord and make an appointment that way?“
But Schatzie was no longer listening. In fact, he was no longer complaining to any organic creature that would listen. Instead, the dog busied himself behind the bed, tail wagging emphatically and consequently knocking around all objects on the nightstand. Alois’ cell phone, an old and beaten copy of Red Dragon, a handmade necklace and a stick of deodorant all found the floor in various paths, with the deodorant wedging between the nightstand and the bed. The dog bumped the bed itself continually, forcing the deodorant further and further into No Man’s Land as he pawed at the floor.
Alois’ concentration didn’t last through the dog’s mischievous behavior. „Pfui!“ He exclaimed to his pet, who paused in recognition of the command for a few seconds. The object of his attention, however, proved too seductive for his obedience and Schatzie soon returned to play.
„Was zum Teufel…“ Alois abandoned the email in a quick stand. He crossed the room in a handful of paces and peered over the edge of the bed, where he saw little more than the back of his dog’s gargantuan skull. Seizing Schatzie’s sizable scruff, he managed to tug the dog just enough to spot what captured his attention so. What he found, however, was decidedly unforgivable.
„A ******** mouse?“ Alois immediately shot onto the bed, and positioned himself squarely in the center. „Fass! Fass! Kill it already! Ugh, ******** rodents in this place…“ Hastily he searched for his cell phone, and upon spotting it on the floor near the dreaded intruder, he resorted to the shitty, unmentionably stained, hotel phone. Hastily he dialed the number he wrote down for the realtor as he encouraged his dog to commit murder.
Within two rings, a voice sounded on the other line - Alois imagined a bored, middle-aged housewife who outgrew her husband by three years. „Hi, yes, I’m calling about the apartment you have listed for May first. Yes, I know it says email only-… You made the choice to answer the phone. Listen, is there anyone living in it currently? No? Then how much do you want up-front so I can move in tonight? Yes, I said tonight. No, I don’t give a s**t about incomplete renovations. There’s not mice there, yes? Good.
„Fine, I’ll pay the month’s rent to have it now.“ Panicked, he glanced to the floor again. He couldn’t find it. The furry ******** monster of his nightmares disappeared and even though his dog searched hastily he couldn’t find it either. „That’s fine. Email me the lease and I’ll have it signed to you tonight.“ From the Starbucks WiFi down the street, most likely. I’m desperate, so quit jerking me around and take advantage of me already.
„Okay. We’ll meet at Darlene’s and discuss conditions there.“ Wherever that is. Is that a female impersonator bar? Sounds like one. „Tonight. Now if possible.“ Covering the mouthpiece, he whispered colorful expletives to every molecule of air in the room. „Meet you there, bye.“ Alois tossed the phone onto the base and fled the room at speeds that shamed Usain Bolt.
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 9:43 pm
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23 april 2016 1245
alois' apartment
'The bother of the lease paper ended with forty pages of bullshit, each initialed and signed by Alois to indicate in very obvious fashion that he read all of the rules listed in its confines. All rules, bizarre or common sense, would be adhered to by him for the duration of his stay and he would take responsibility for them thusly. Now he was the proud new resident in a shithole apartment attached to a vacant studio space where an older fellow used to craft and sell specialty sex toys. Or maybe he collected and sold them, Alois didn’t know and he didn’t ask too many questions about it. The space smelled funny, so he weatherstripped the front of the door in hopes that the weird smell of silicone and sex shop wouldn’t simply permeate his new apartment.
With a space hardly larger than a studio apartment, Alois had both the blessing of knowing his sparse wares taken with him would not look so barren in their unpacking, and the curse of realizing that he could not purchase many more odds and ends without the place looking overly stuffed. Carrying what survived the crash from the wreckage of his car was a small matter of visiting its twisted corpse with a Radio Flyer wagon and wheeling the lot of it back to his apartment. While a long walk, the weather was kind enough to him throughout - as were the passersby that saw him wheeling his stuff along like the latest vagrant on the block.
The unpacking process demanded no more than an hour, sadly, as he lacked all furniture and the boxes he toted along weren’t particularly difficult to organize. He managed plates, clothes, art supplies for his hobby and business, a few sentimental trinkets, probably more books than he ever needed to bring, dog toys and accessories, and smaller furniture items like desk lamps and pencil holders and real slate coasters. These were each either left in their packaging for a moment when he could obtain furniture, or were set in proper order in a temporary space.
He had a small closet in the equally small bedroom, where he stacked his clothes in folded order on the floor. It smelled a little like mothballs, as if the last tenant ran a moth problem in the stale space. There were no central air ducts, so Alois made do with opening all of the windows he could find to air the place out of its setting scent. Afterward, he set about washing the dishes that remained packed for the journey, and was pleasantly surprised to find that none had cracked or broken in their journey, despite the deer punctuating his travels.
Schatzie enjoyed the exploration aspect of a new home, and was quick to sniff out all the nooks and crannies he could find. He enjoyed the tile floor for a time as afternoon crested and the place heated with the humid summer day. He found his water dish and food dish arranged neatly in the corner of the kitchen, by a door leading out to the small patio area that still looked cluttered with old furniture. He found the toilet, whose water he sampled before Alois could reprimand him, and he found a corner of the bedroom where a cat had previously marked the area. He did not, however, find the cat despite his clever searches. Satisfied with the new space, Schatzie settled into the routine of following Alois from room to room and camping out while his owner fussed with the apartment.
Decidedly, Alois thought the space wasn’t particularly home-like and wouldn’t be for quite some time. He had enough money saved up to start on his taxidermy business, though he lacked the space for a proper workshop. He would have to rent one elsewhere; this involved another search, unless the owners of the studio next door intended to open the place for rent.
Then there was, of course, the thousand-dollar transport fee of the Pod containing all of his taxidermy goods. Somehow his savings started to seem meager, even with the large addition awarded from his grandfather’s recent death. Perhaps he should’ve thought this through better.
But there was little sense in worrying about it now. Finding a job in Ashdown couldn’t be that hard if he was unable to get his shop into motion straight away and secure some business. Taxidermy also became slightly less dependent on local customers with the advent of Etsy and online ordering. He would make it work, he decided at last, as he filled a freshly-washed mug with cold water and sat on the floor next to his dog.
He would make it work, or he would set on the road again.
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:09 pm
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24 april 2016 0950
alois’ apartment
„If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t be calling about it. I understand that you’re trying to renovate the place into a working apartment unit, but I want to rent the space as a workshop. How much were you projecting to charge for rent?“ Alois’ tone was edged with frustration as he tried to explain, as clearly as possible, his interest in the space on the other side of his apartment. He already had door access to it, sealed away as it was currently, and the space itself had everything he needed for starting up a shop. However, the owners’ intentions to renovate the space proved both irritating for the extra time it tacked on and needless for his interests. If he could stop this ridiculous bid for construction and secure the place for himself, then he would be well on his way to striking up a small business in Ashdown.
The voice on the line sounded tinny and far off, as if using speakerphone. The voice was of a clear timbre, yet nasal in quality. While Alois spoke with them, he caught himself wondering exactly how much of the story was true - did they really project to turn the place into another apartment? How far did they really go in terms of renovations? Would they agree to let him tour the space before they continued with what plans they had? And exactly how much would they gouge him in renting the space if they agreed to drop the intended changes?
„Right. Since there’s still native plumbing, it suits all my needs for the shop I intend to open. I want to know how much you’ve already renovated and whether you’re willing to drop further renovations to rent it out as-is. I can sign a lease at need, and you can save the renovation plans for after my shop moves on. No, I don’t expect that to be soon.
„I do, however, need to tour the space to see the layout of it before I sign anything. When is your next available appointment?“ More backpedaling and stalling ensued. Alois wondered if they somehow locked in their plans with the contractors and somehow lacked the ability to back out of the agreement. Did that often happen? Could it happen? Was this person already set on transforming the space. Alois didn’t know, and he wasn’t fond of asking.
„Wait, there’s one more thing. If I find the space mostly suitable but I want some changes done, is it possible for your contractors to handle that before you dismiss them? Whatever the total cost becomes, you can factor it into the lease.“ This question, he found, received a more straightforward and favorable answer to his last few. Grabbing a pencil, Alois scribbled down the date and time for the earliest appointment to tour the space next door. The notepad he wrote on sat against the cool tile, where he too sat, and where the dog sat. „I’ve got it. I’ll see you then. Bye.“ He ended the call, laid the cell phone on the note pad, and looked at his dog.
„Looks like we might just get that space next door, Schatzie. How lucky is that? If it suits what I need, or can be made to do so, then I’ve got a work and home literally one door away from each other. That’ll be terribly useful.“
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Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2016 10:31 pm
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10 may 2016 1406
alois’ workshop ‚mount me‘
Alois’ various tasks fell into their completed states in relatively short order. The contractors had little work to do before the space was ready for taxidermy purposes, and they completed the tasks on hand in about a week’s time. The realtor finally relented in turning the space into an apartment, seeing a greater gain in allowing an actual business to move in, and there was no need for new zoning on the space given its previous occupant’s business. Alois did, however, need to obtain a business license according to the laws of the state, and similarly managed it in short order. Perhaps the most demanding task in that vein was determining a name for his business to register under, though he found that a provocative name like Mount Me suited his purposes well.
With the space now smelling of fresh paint and construction more than the strange mustiness of the previous sex shop, Alois had before him only another handful of major tasks before he could open his business. Advertisement was something he found easier to assign to his sister, who agreed readily to call the local newspapers and arrange ads. She had the quote of what he was willing to pay for advertising services, and she would explore exactly how far she could take that dollar to bring business to Alois. Obtaining his merchandise was another concern, which was quickly remedied by calling the Pods service to deliver his Pod to the area. He still retained several finished taxidermy projects, a freezer full of partial or intended projects, and various boxes of bone jewelry rendered in his earlier practices. They would tide him over until commissions rolled in - assuming that Ashdown had a market for them.
Which, he found in visiting some of the dive bars, they did. Many a hunter enjoyed the teeming wildlife around Ashdown, and there were a number of local hunting spots not far from the town itself. Some required extra tags, he gathered, but he didn’t care about that so long as people were willing to pay for those tags.
And, to his chagrin, there was a large population of fisherman in the area.
The last of his tasks involved determining a grand opening date, attempting to coordinate with other businesses, and arranging the shop to his liking. It lacked the wide space to start tanning practices, and he needed to divide up his practice between workable space and show space. Luckily he had the walls reinforced to hold the weight of some of the mounted heads, which took care of some of the display. Rugs could easily lay about on the floor if he didn’t particularly care about them, or remain on some of the excess wall space. Other smaller projects found mounting space between the larger ones, or remained on display in curio cabinets next to some of the oddities he collected over the years.
In his first arrangement of the shop, the place looked much too cluttered and disorganized. Maximizing the use of the wall space left the curio cabinets infringing on some of the displays. He needed to retain some of his efforts in storage and reorganize the remaining wall space to something more cohesive and exemplary of his capabilities. In the end, he decided to mount one sample of each large game creature, then offer a selection of rugs on the second wall, and a collection of fish and smaller specimens on the last. Ample wall space was left blank for the curio cabinets, and he found a freestanding jewelry display cabinet to keep in the small animal alcove. In another area, Alois staged a bear rug with a coffee table sitting atop it, and two couches faced conversationally with furs heaped over the backs. On the table sat a portfolio of his works that weren’t displayed in the shop, and information on what was needed to accomplish a mount of its nature.
Alois kept the long counters on the left side of the store, with the large game heads behind, and organized that space with a number of cabinets for tools and other items. He decided at last to keep a chest freezer in the corner for interim projects, carefully out of sight of potential customers, and maintain some workspace area for the smaller projects. Larger ones would simply find work time after the store closed, as he would need the floor itself for the space required.
Overall, he felt this was a promising start to a business in an accidental shithole. Perhaps things were starting to look up.
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:05 pm
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30 august 2016 2119
warehouse downstairs
trigger warning: attempted suicide
Dull pain stewed in the old lower level of the warehouse. The few bright bulbs that scattered the apartment flickered bright with fury, bussing throughout as the sole sound to populate the space. they shone over harwoods, waxed and waxed and waxed until thick glops of clear fluid left the floors uneven and slippery. The bulbs shined like spotlights dancing on the floor. They touched walls in a dull, diffuse glow that left the warehouse hot, cramped, uninviting. It felt like a cocoon, and at other times an endless tunnel in the jungles of Vietnam. It wasn’t common for visitors to come here; this place was made as the self-inprisonment of its only resident, and even the other entity rattling around hardly disturbed him. A wall and door separated the stairs, which were accessible from the outside, and Alois preferred it this way.
But the space still felt stark and insular. It felt lonely past that point of reaching out, like a ghost on another plane trying to make contact. Perhaps that was his exact description, for since his forced journey through Other Ashdown, Alois felt like a forgotten anachronism trying to make itself relevant. He was stolen back from that place, and for what purpose? What misbegotten act of good will promised him a better life where another came about to damage it? The thought alone teased hot anger, regardless of how he choked it down.
Alois felt far too worn and willowed beneath these new burdens. His life and attitude both were shaped in a crucible of his father’s will, and all amalgamation afterward shaped to a realm far outside of this one. He didn’t belong. The aspects of his life changed to Vale’s preferences didn’t belong. The burning will that called of darker times didn’t belong. All attempts to reclaim the new scraps of his life ended in tepid retrospection, this stark and chilly acknowledgement that it could never reach to standard anymore. So what was the point in trying to salvage what Vale left behind? What could be accomplished out of trying to resume his life like the past three months offered no impact? Alois saw no reason, and in that, there was promise.
But with the knife in hand, sharp and brilliant and glittering, he felt a trepidation. He felt worry and fear where none existed before. He knew he shaped himself beyond this — he knew he could swallow down all weak emotion in favor of his algid will but that talent must’ve scattered like ash to the wildfires. What was he now? What was he but a weak, pitiful facsimile of the man he was, half-changed to the liking of his father? What was he but a slavering, puling pup caught half in bear trap and half in flame? Was he anything at all anymore? What would it mean to keep this existence? What great point was there in tasting fear, warm and metal, on his tongue?
Ashton confirmed it enough. The dog-eared rat b*****d paced his words well when he insisted that Vale was the better man, the fake far exceeding the likes of the original. A hands off approach, he wanted. And why had his assistant betrayed him so? Was the work not adequate, the training not enlightening for how far Ashton’s technique bounded forth? Did he manage wrongly, or did Vale simply know how to read people better?
Scathing anger reminded him that Ashton’s opinions meant little for how the petulant creature laid in wait, for how it sang and danced and begged for that praise until it could seize upon what Alois painstakingly built. It was a rash of plague on the whole - a weakening agent sent to destroy. It meant nothing.
And what of Autumn, that seething insisted, what of Autumn and her words of praise? What of her claims about survival and strength? Autumn pioneered her own point, her delicate and optomistic point bathed in warm sunniness that never reached a cellar such as this. Her ideas alone sat diametrically opposed to Ashton and left him at an impasse. Act not on half-measures, his anger demanded. There comes no cause for action out of impulse to act alone. Be not swayed by a coward’s lukewarm arguments.
Self-doubt harkened against its oppressor, however. It whispered in tongues known far more intimately to him.
Nichts hast du mehr für dein Leben als den Tod verdient.
The knife sank deep in the icy plunge, his breath stolen away by the torrential influx of pain and agony. The first strike, unwitting, bit further than a practiced hand. He felt his own nerves retreat from the first bloody blow, back up his arm, leaving behind a numbness that left the rest of the matter easier to take. But his consciousness fluttered and blinked, unbidden by he, and threatened its own vacating of the act. He steeled himself, bit tongue to anchor his attention, and pulled downward in a motion that felt no different than a cutting of a canvas. Strangely he thought of Thorne then, and the clutter of easels and paintings packed away upstairs. Strangely he thought of Thorne then, and the wicked little schemer broke his hand for his mistress. He wasn’t satisfied.
A delicate blue left behind a roadmap that he crudely followed. Up and about it intersected and danced in graceful patterns, and he butchered it with a trembling hand. He would not, could not, manage more - this he knew instinctively. But what use was there in another stroke when already brilliant arterial blood sprang forth from the wound? The laceration smiled up at him, his subcutaneous fat forming the teeth of that cheshire gesture. He felt faint. His head and arms and torso weighed far too much for support. The knife slipped. Bloodletting painted its own abstract masterpiece atop his dull grey blanket. Hissing, Alois felt that same fear as before confirm his wrong decision.
No half-measures, it said, and it was the anger talking.
But the heat was gone, poured out in great waste upon his bed. Alois reclined, unable to prop himself up any longer, and resigned himself to his mistake. Resignation might lengthen that half-measure. Autumn’s words cautioned against it, however, and his mind remained bathed in vehement contradictions until it lost focus.
Far above the warehouse, the moon stood aglitter in its sheen of stars. The full moon had punctured the sky, aware, but silent in its vigil.
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:24 pm
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4 september 2016 1005
rider waite forest
Walks lost their flavor when he learned his dog was killed. He still tried to find some solace in the slowly moving scenery, whether a passing scent or a picturesque scene or a rare silence suspended in the trees. He found them only dreary reminders of what he lost - memories littered the area he passed as he found familiar scenes in the cold greeting of autumn. He didn’t care for it. He lacked the simple energy to find great sorrow for it anymore, and he kept mechanically walking. Scenes faded, memories lost their meaning over time. He would survive it, choice unnecessary. Still, he missed Schatzie terribly; his latest companion would not find replacement so quickly. The mourning period would extend well past winter.
Monotonous walking stole him from the sidewalks, past the pavement and concrete and brick buildings, and into the windswept grass. Saplings promised great shade for the area long past Alois’ time in ashdown, and they bent invitingly beneath his palm as he passed them. Deeper he would progress, into the rightful forested area, and into Finn’s jurisdiction. Wildlife lurked there, from the rare bears to wolves and far too many deer, but he found little reason to care. None of these creatures provided conversation. He strode beneath the patchwork rays of sun that peered through emerald leaves.
Mentally he worried the bone of his father’s completed intents against decisions made in haste. He acquiesced to Alexis’ demands because they were easy - he found no reason to care about them, and thus he found a broad reign in how much damage he could enact in a tithe. Father’s logic process needn’t apply here, he knew, but he found it quite necessary to hand off strife incurred to another. Perhaps, he hoped, he could find some sense of catharsis in pushing out the suffering. There would be no July, no long stints in Other Ashdown, but he had to trust himself. Suffering grew change, which was a belief that he and Ezra shared; the path of enacting it upon another human without great negative consequences would stand as his first trial.
But, he cautioned himself dryly, that’s only because Father did away with my fetch unduly. What did the others have to endure? In what state did it leave them? Would the trial have been so different for me if I fought Vale myself? I imagine so - for what remained for me to fight-
His thoughts caught in a gasp as he stumbled over a thickened tree root, and caught himself with the lowest branch of the offending entity. He paused then, wincing, as his arm slowly recovered from the shock. His stitches protested greatly beneath his bandage and he released his grip to massage damaged tissue. The branch returned to its natural position, and soon after, the soft thump of falling debris drew his attention to the grasses behind him.
Half-turning, Alois’ attention paused on the familiar form of a crow. Or - perhaps it wasn’t a crow. As he crouched over the creature, he realized quickly that its size was rather large for a crow, and yet its skull length did not necessarily match a raven’s. In truth, Alois faced great difficulty in placing the creature between either species, and soon settled upon simply getting it home and gutting it for a closer study of its bones. Upon turning it over with the tip of his shoe, however, he uncovered something far more telling about the creature’s anatomy -
It had three legs. Three perfectly-shaped, fully intentional legs.
What in the hell just came out of that tree. Or did it really come from Other Ashdown? Reserving judgment, Alois pulled his jacket sleeve over the tips of his fingers and plucked the thing by one of its feet. Now raised from the round, it hung as limply as an afternoon’s penny dreadful. And what was he to do with this? More properly, what could he do with this? As a noble, could he really just gut it and move on, assuming he could swallow down the thought of essentially crafting a fetch? Alois frowned at the corpse. He could take it home, at least, and pursue action later.
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 3:29 pm
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02 october 2016 1632
equinox tea and remedies
Clouds cast over the sun some time after Shun walked away, and Alois found himself in the grip of a chill. Lukewarm tea no longer chased away the drop in temperature and Alois pulled his deathly hoodie tighter about himself. Shun sounded nonplussed by his responses, and he found this an expected result. Many found bitter medicine intolerable without a palatable sweetness for an offset. And could Alois blame him? Being told one acted improperly, or squandered one’s actions, often precipitated this type of response. Didn’t the Hagakure warn against this? Was he not eternally in practice about breaking one’s opinion to another? Alois sighed, and his breath gained no visibility in the chilled air.
In a black wave, harbingers of death settled themselves atop the cafe. A few even purched on the signs with beady eyes staring down at plates, at patrons. Alois looked back at them, and their baleful gazes looked all too attentively upon his person. Huffing, Alois turned his attention back to his drink, which now lost its appeal while the weather turned but colder.
But what other way is there to go about it? Father chose me for this role purposefully - even if the value of that role was based in sentiment alone - and I now hold a power that others cannot. Perhaps it isn’t a teaching aid, but a means by which to govern the masses. Still, that thought bears all manner of missteps. One cannot hope to govern any who do not agree to look to one for advice. Secondarily, the power I have, whatever it might be, hasn’t manifested itself in any useful sense. Even if I had the power to compel others to my will, it is entrapment at best. All this talk of the cage and the enemy… I wonder if we’re not already entrapped in our own Angst und Glaube. We’re taught of an enemy, a conveniently identifiable thing, and a past upon a past upon a past… And we are to swallow it wholesale and without complaint. Surely not everyone buys into this expectation.
Alois dumped the cup into the nearby flower beds, bathing the petals in the scent of tea with vanilla. The birds - crows, he recognized - encroached further, and started sifting through the detritus for food or bauble. His gaze remained upon them, upon the oil-slick shine of rainbow on the black of their feathers, while they busied themselves. If he stared for too long, he noted, they began to stare back at him. And, as if conscious of the curiosity he carried in his bag, they encroached upon it with similar interest. Idly he wondered if they smelled Other Ashdown on him.
He had the thing for a while now, he knew. It never rotted, never smelled of death, and never roused either. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, this absurdity of a corvid in his backpack, and so much of him yearned to call it a hoax. It would be simple, he decided, to create some kind of abomination in the way that rogue taxidermists did for so long. Still, this did not look like such a job - nothing retained heat for this long, or kept feathers so conditioned without constant care.
In a short experiment, Alois stood and excused himself from his seat. He started down the long walk back home, bag slung over his shoulder and hand buried in pockets, and he heard in the waiting seconds afterward the beating of wings. He knew without looking that they followed him.
They follow as others do not. Is it my duty as noble to serve at the head of birds? Of crows, no less? Little else has changed since my ‚coming of position‘. I’ve heard little from the others in respects to these strange powers that are supposed to be burgeoning. Perhaps it is because I was not the one to deal the killing blow to my fetch - I do not know. But it stands to reason that I now have crows and Rath as my subjects and no further power than I had before. Those in Ashdown are not compelled to my wit, and harbor no further interest in seeing me now as they did prior to my abduction.
So there must be something else I can do with this position - something beyond proving myself as a teacher and heir to Ashdown’s majority respect. They said we exist outside the cycle now. That has to mean something.
But, again, I assume meaning out of this.
He halted then, and looked to the birds lining powerlines and rooftops. Some pecked beneath their wings at the down feathers. Others watched him with hawkish interest. He grinned, then, and he did not care for how it looked to passersby.
Perhaps that’s the secret in the end. ‚Meaning‘ may just be my key to success.
We have a plan, Father.
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Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2016 4:17 pm
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17 october 2016 1808
other ashdown hospital
His tithe, Alois decided, was a lost cause. The cretin showed no capacity for higher thought, did not think beyond herself, and adhered stubbornly to some vague sense of ‚other‘ in the subject of something so banal and pointless as gender. He did not relish time spent with this tithe, nor did he like acknowledging that his words fell on deaf ears. There would be no greater understanding of the world from this one. Perhaps, as he surmised from his Father, picking his tithes was a learning experience of its own right. He needed to know what to look for in the individuals he took rather than acquiescing to the first demand made of him.
He wondered, then, if Alexis therefore squandered his ability to make nobles. Likely so - and similarly he wondered if he could execute a tithe without further harm coming of him, assuming they hadn’t yet reached the end of the noble process. He hoped that someone would put an end to that miserable creature’s life. How stupid was he for taking such a worthless sot under his wing, anyhow? With no money and no social pull Alexis had no hopes in hell of making a difference, let alone ‚protecting Autumn‘. What a frivolous goal.
In lieu of wanting to simply set the creature on fire himself, Alois parted from the grueling task of educating present company. He started down the winding path off the main roads, and passed int othe forest where often he reached Other Ashdown. In the midst of October, the ground grew light in playful yellows and sensuous reds. Not yet had autumn progressed so far as to cover the ground in brown, but the leaves still whispered their stiffness to him as he crossed through shallow valleys. The deciduous forest still offered cover, and for that he was thankful, for to this day he still found black clouds of harbingers accompanying him. Here, they littered the trees but the leaves afforded a measure of privacy. here, the trees exclaimed in a bristle of leaves when another one found their branches.
Evening neared, and the insects brewed with new intensity. When he crossed to Other Ashdown, he did not initially realize it - while the song of the forest changed, no rain trickled down to dampen him. He started second-guessing whether he could find a place to cross over at all, for he lacked Finn’s innate sense for it, but intuition warned him otherwise. He did not listen at first, but finally consented with uneasiness that he now found himself in Other Ashdown.
It helped, he conceded, that he found his Father not long after crossing.
Their meeting was short, for conversation wasn’t palatable in Alois’ frame of mind, but Ezra passed on directions to a hospital that may have answers for him. Perhaps the suggestion was deceptively simple, for anything that wasn’t rotting or living may be arrested in a coma, but the thought of taking the creature to some kind of a hospital still bothered him. For a land whose Court he was supposedly a part of, he found his grasp of basic logic in Other Ashdown tenuous at best. Upon thanking his Father, he set out beneath the brilliant glow of Otherflies toward his intended destination.
The hike proved less troublesome with no rain to turn the place into a marsh. The directions received were thankfully simplistic - he needn’t remember to make three rights and cross beneath a torii gate and double back around on the left side of the walnut tree and other bullshit he expected. Instead, he followed a well-established path decorated with the curious magics of this strange realm, and curved along the trail beneath the warm, painted sunset until he started to see buildings.
Most looked decrepit, he found, and he remembered this well. The Court maintained itself to perfection, but the less inhabited parts of Other Ashdown looked perhaps no worse for wear than analogous ghost towns of Europe. Most buildings crumbled in on themselves, sucked dry of all will to stand, and others remained little more than a pile of rubble atop their foundations. Zac mentioned a library to him before, and briefly he searched for it. Nowhere in these old buildings did he spot a single book, however.
The search was soon abandoned when he discovered the building described to him. Luckily, he thought, the building stood out starkly from the rest for its vibrant green exterior. On no other building did he spot even a fleck of moss, and this one boasted ivy so thick that he could not determine the materials of the building itself. Much of the windows broke out to the force of nature, and inside crawled enough greenery that paint colors became indistinguishable. The door, tarnished as it was, still looked serviceable despite the interference from the forest. He wondered, briefly, if the building was one of those colonial-styles for its square shape and regimented windows. It was hardly a thought that made its home in his head as he adjusted the bag on his shoulder; briefly he reminded himself that he was here for the inspection of a mutated bird, and not to chew the scenery.
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