Log Date: 9/9/96 Log Cast: Evergreen, spirit of Pacer, Thicket Log Intro: Evergreen of Needlebrook Holt has had his second encounter with the mysterious blue and black mushrooms that grant him visions of an elf called Aron -- but, as he investigates whether he can move and think as himself while the visions are upon him, he is guided, both in vision and in reality, to the waterfall where Thicket resides. And Thicket is none too pleased to see him.... [Continued from pacer-vision-2.log] ---------- (Now what's this? A voice...her voice, yes, asking...were he to try to tell this tale to his tribe, he'd need to answer...but not to break Story to do it...) ** _Your_ Aron, ** he emphasizes, gentle in tone, hopeful. She's granted so much already -- gratitude, that rare flash of a smile -- will she grant as much as to admit her mate? Thicket freezes in the water where she stands, hand clenched on the knife, eyes going round in shock at the sending of a name she hasn't heard in more time than she cares to remember. Her mouth works, then shrieks out, "How you know that name?! How you know Thicket?!" Shock holds her rooted there, at least for a moment... ... even as the round-bellied elf female studies you, vulnerable softness warring with her habitual scowl in her expression. "Mine," she says at last, gruffly, then sends, ** My Aron... ** She reaches her hand for yours, and adds, ** Our cub, ** guiding your fingers to her stomach. (That's definitely a voice now. Try to see through the haze...define reality. But the Story...! Lift a shroom to the teeth and nibble conservatively.) ** Ours, ** the broad-smiled answer, gaze gentle and full upon her, her eyes, her skin...and then, realization, and sudden elation. She admitted it -- her mate! (Now, what's that? A new element? Wait for it, nibble a bit, welcome it...part of the Story...) Thicket stares, her own mouth agape, as the stranger's mouth shifts, flashing white teeth in the darkness in a disturbingly familiar way. She sees his hand move, obscuring the haunting, melting smile for a moment... but blankly fails to register, at least for a moment, the significance of his motion. She shrieks again, raggedly, "WHO YOU?!" Fear begins to sift out through her scent, in her voice. <** Fear? Vess-fear? Worry-alarm-wish to help **> The vision blurs, oddly, for a moment, yielding to the admission of a frightened voice on the edge of your awareness... and something else, a strange echo, as if the elf in the Story is doubling himself. What...? She's afraid. Reach out with the other hand...relax her, calm her down. It was a good hunt, wasn't it? ** Vess... ** Worried eyes, smile fading a bit. (What's real here? The Story is real, always, and reality is real -- why does this third thing break that?) ** Just me... ** (A voice...but she sends, in the Story...try to see reality, focus on the anger-voice, fear-voice, on movement... And reaching for the echo within. Must-stay-Aron, must-keep-Evergreen here too...) The vision is blurring again, trees flickering in and out of Real and Story, your head beginning to spin. The elf in the water shimmers, too, belly round, then flat. Why won't the Story settle down? You catch fragmentary glimpses, of a hand guiding yours to where the baby in her belly kicks... to the green-gold-brown eyes filling with a bizarre kind of fright. Thicket begins quivering violently, eyes darting from the oddly smiling stranger into the air and back again. She wails, "Pacer?!" and her voice cracks, despondent. (A second tale, this must be -- another part of this Aron's recollection. Overlapping, ugh. Let go of the elation, the hand on the round cub-belly, and focus on this one...why is she afraid? Follow the echo, the new story arriving, give into it and observe.) ** Safe here. Aron here... ** A nod, a jump of hope that she's understanding through her fear. ** Yes. Pacer. ** ... ** Pacer, ** she sends, as if tasting it, and you could swear she has finally decided she approves. ** Aron. ** But that last glimpse of vision begins to blur, more noticeably... <** Not Pacer! Not Aron! ** The odd echo swirls closer to you, tasting of confrontation, of something being roused, shaken out of sleep.> Why do you feel so strange, all of a sudden, as though your Self is splintering? Or is it the vision? The Story-scent clinging to you seems to be trying to leave you even as it rests against your skin... almost as if the Story can't decide what it's doing. (Abrupt loss, a feeling of longing -- so close, she'd accepted it, she'd taken him in as her mate, as what he is... Torn from him. Not Aron? Wrong story? Can't grasp it -- not Aron, not storyteller either? Grasp onto anything, anything at all -- let the story take over and don't try to live in it, just watch, or less-than-watch -- backing away from the echo, away from the confrontation.) Thicket shrieks again, panicked, resuming her grasp on her knife... and, driven into motion by the echo in the air, she stumbles forward out of the pool... (Grab fast hold, then, to the story, to whatever story the shrooms want to tell, whatever tale the echo wants him to experience. Reach for Aron-ness, let it engulf, and hold on...) Thicket scrambles to the stranger, snarling, intending to tackle. "Who are you?!" she screams, leaping. (The voice again, her voice, fear turned to anger, defensive...who am I? Who...muddled, hazy, lost, hang onto Aron-ness, the only thing -to- hang onto. Aron. Aron. Almost a send, panicked -- yes, answer her, answer -- ) ** Aron...? ** Thicket tackles the stranger, knocking him to the ground... then freezing again at the sending, transfixed by the dazed grey eyes meeting hers. The knife clatters out of nerveless fingers, even as she begins to vehemently shake her disheveled head, mouth silently forming the word "No" over and over. What's... wrong with her? It IS your mate... you can remember this much, can remember her leaves-on-earth eyes, and a sudden pang fills you at the naked fear on her face. Why is she scrambling away from you? Thicket scurries backwards on hands and knees away from... the stranger?, face going blank with panic, eyes filling with tears. On ungainly legs she begins to stagger to her feet... He freezes, dumbly lain out on the bank, blinking. The ache of seeing fear in those eyes...eyes that should, for him, only smile, even if grudgingly. What's he done to cause this? ** Vess...? ** He sits up a bit as she skitters away, expression hurt despite himself, despite wanting to help her. ** Just me... ** Thicket's face goes colorless at the next sending, hands rising in clenched, terrified fists to her mouth, a wordless wail escaping her. Then, quite abruptly, her eyes roll back to the whites in her head, and she crumples over. Pain. ** No! ** He scrambles to her, reaching out to push her hair aside, to put a hand beneath her head, cradling her neck. ** Thicket... ** Kneel, lift her shoulders, look down at her. Does she breathe? Does she move? She breathes, at least as close as you can tell with the odd haze in your vision, the inexplicable tightness in your head, as though you are suddenly too small to contain your own mind. Your limbs feel clumsy for no reason you can name as you scoop her up into your arms. Awkward and short, yes, the legs knelt below, but the focus is on Thicket, it must be -- she's hurt! ** It's me, ** he coaxes, gently, reaching for her through the barrier of unconsciousness. ** Pacer... ** His send is underlined with no-need-for-fear, safety now. He'll take care of you. A barely audible send-whimper. ** ** Gone? ** I'm right here... ** He looks up and around. Quail lain on the bank...waterfall...everything else is right; why isn't his body? ..body. A sensation of time. ** I'm...I'm here now. ** That much is firm. His gaze returns to her face, hopeful. ** Thicket... ** Timmorn's Blood, what's happened to her? Why does she seem so thin, so weathered, with silver in her hair that you do not remember? Sensation of time again...something's happened to him, something's changed, and something's happened to her, too. He swallows faint panic, focusing on the all-important form in his arms. ** There's food... ** A gentle image of the quail, still waiting. ** It's safe, Thicket. I'm here. ** Thicket stirs, weakly, fretfully. The scent is wrong. But the sending... the sending is right. But... no, it can't be. Her eyes creak open, and she blinks once at the face leaning anxiously over hers. Wrong face! Wrong hair, wrong eyes... an animal whimper escapes her. The eyes are wrong, but the light behind them... A concerned light, mixed with fear, but Pacer's light nevertheless. ** There, ** he sends, softly encouraging, a smile spreading over his features -- features that take well to smiling. The features have the wrong shapes, but she knows the smile. It has haunted her dreams for countless turns of the seasons; here and now, she stares up at it, eyes welling over with further tears. Her body -- so thin! -- trembles spasmodically, and her scent is thick with fright. How it hurts to see her like this...! He puts his other hand forth, to draw her near, to comfort her...and blinks. What's this odd bracelet of wolf fur on his arm? His smile falters, the panic rising...he struggles to set it aside, to tend to his mate. ** There's food, ** he offers. ** You should eat. ** Thicket whimpers, "G-gone... saw... you were gone...." A gentle squeeze of her shoulders. She's become so fragile... "I'm here n--" He halts, eyes going wide, breath catching in his throat. "...now," he completes, very softly -- in a pitch not unpleasant, but rather warmer and higher than his own -- than Pacer's own. He swallows his breath and, unmoving, looks down at her again, pained question in his eyes. Certain she's gone mad, Thicket whimpers again, lifting a shaking hand to the face above her. The voice is wrong too, but the inflections...! She still weeps, as well, while fragmentedly sending, ** Saw... saw Tall Ones... long time... gone so long... ** But it _is_ him, somehow, and seeing that much, however uncertain, reflected in those leaves-on-earth eyes reassures him. ** I know. ** Unpleasant...he looks down at his arms (seems there's more of those tiny soft hairs than there ought to be, and entirely wrong in color...and that bracelet of fur on either wrist is wrong, too) and his torso (not-my-leathers), then at the Wolfrider in his arms. ** Something's changed. ** Brows peaked in worry, he can't hide his fear -- not from her, as if he could hide anything from her -- afraid to test his voice again, he sends on. ** But I _am_ here. ** Thicket's fingers, light and unsteady as a cluster of leaves blowing in a breeze, make contact with your cheek. She drinks in the feel of the sending, the sight of familiar expressions playing across an unfamiliar face, and finally sends tinily, ** You... is you... mate... ** And with that, she bursts into a flood of tears. She knows, she believes...he smiles again, differently, eyes closing as he pulls you to him, cradling you against his chest. Bowing his head to nod gladly into your hair, tears slipping slowly, silently, down his own cheeks, he gives attention to this strange new form...this not-Pacer form, too small and short of limb, too furred, too silver and grey. To the sensation that his head, his mind, too, is too small...to the odd not-Pacer echo within it, like a memory of the story in a song. All this, he'll have to weigh, discover...but now, Thicket needs him. He breathes softly into your hair, sending reassurance and gladness. It makes you dizzy, the sheer physical _presence_ of her. Why does holding her, scenting her, seeing her, hearing her, seem like such a wonder? The brush of her mind almost fades into inconsequence for all that it is your mate's beloved mind-touch -- for, even though she is familiar, her presence palpable and sweet to the point of pain, it is not quite the same presence you remember. Her scent speaks of hunger, of deprivation, of old pains... and of age. She's changed, as he himself has, though not as much...but she's still _Vess_, she's still his mate. How long...he doesn't care to ask, or to know. Why he doesn't remember it -- or why he's here now, if he had been "gone," as she saw, as she knew -- will come later. (Faint pressure from the echo within. Important, something is important.) He squeezes his eyes tighter shut, letting the last tears fall. ** You must eat, ** he insists, gently. Thicket pulls away from you slightly, eyes still wide in dazed wonder. Her hands fumble across you, touching, fingers quivering, as if she strives to tell herself that you -- or at least the body before her -- is actually here. His eyes open and, just as hesitantly -- more so, as he watches the hand that isn't his emerge from around you to reach out and touch your face -- sends his own wonder and amazement. Barely breathing, the silver-haired form shivers a bit, closing his eyes and reopening them, smiling hugely to find that nothing has changed -- least of all you -- from the instant before. ** Vess, ** he hazards, softly. Thicket's fragile form still trembles in your arms, but something of the fright begins to drain out of her eyes, replaced by a stunned, hesitant wonder. ** A...Aron... ** Grey eyes widen, joy escaping in sending. ** Yes. ** (...No! Not... but the echo fades, dismayed...) He stares down at the drained face, the gaunt form, the silvered hair...the flecks of gold yet in her eyes that time hans't changed. He breathes, at last, a deep sigh, and bows his head again to hold you close to himself, faintly aware of the odd feeling of a thick braided rope of hair sliding over his spine as he moves. Thicket gives another little whimper, then, at last tightens her arms around your neck, clinging to you with a desperate tightness, as though starkly afraid of... something. Putting the wonder aside for the moment, clinging just as tightly to you, Pacer sighs softly into your hair. ** What is it...? ** He tilts his head back to look down at you, lifting a hand to stroke your hair, then your face. ** So strange... I know... ** Thicket meets your gaze, and for all the gauntness of her face, the fine delicate lines traced into the corners of her eyes, she seems as wide-eyed as a cub, and she trembles even yet. ** ** The time-beyond-time strikes him and he closes his eyes for a moment, shaking his head in weak denial. ** Here now... ** When his eyes open again, it is to look down at himself, his leathers that aren't his, the body he doesn't remember, in agreement with your conclusion. He looks for a long time...and then returns his gaze to meet your own, smiling helplessly. "I'll...make do," he murmurs, one brow crooking in reminiscent surprise at the gentler, higher voice he now possesses. Dazed and numb, still staring at you with eyes as round as pebbles, Thicket slowly nods. Thicket then sends, raggedly, tears again glittering in her gaze, ** M-missed... missed you... ** Such painful joy (overcoming even the shock of horror echoing inside that too-full mind...the pressure of too much presence forcing one away, forcing the echo to silence...fading), Pacer can hardly bear. His arms enclose about you once more, burying his face in your hair. ** I'm back, ** he sends, with joy and certainty, trembling. ** Back to stay. ** [End log.]