A preternatural being of a malignant nature, supposed to seek nourishment by sucking blood

~ Journal Entry

After all this, it appears that staring at the empty page can be even as staring over long into an abyss. Ah, and there is proof, here on the sheet before me, that I am at the least not denied what solace there can be for one such as myself in this simple scratching of the pen and paper. Wherefore my surprise? Am I not reminded ever exactly how much light there can be in what we might call darkness? What might I here scribe that could hope in any way to recount the twistings of my course? In what manner might I hope to capture the heart of it and trap it in mere words in a string, to be carried off by whomsoever might happen across their tangle? 

Now, it does occur to me that within these very pages is an account of a youth who chanced upon a pool and had abandoned his story to dare its return, and that any who chance upon this bound collection in the years to come might wonder how events unfolded in that youth's daring. It happens that I might be in a unique position to alleviate such anxiety.

Daring youth in question did return to the woods, where he was set upon by a wood fiend, even as before, but steadying himself he did strike the vile creature to the ground, proceeding as purposed. The grove he found just as the sun danced on one edge of the silvered surface of the pool and the moon herself graced the furthest edge there from. At the edge opposite the youth himself did spark the reflection of that most inconstant star, masquerading now as the angel of the evening (though in spring she does sprightly charm the dawn), and the four were as the points on a map. Constant Apollo was surrendering the field to the ever changing moon and her most deceptive of bedfellows. This youth might have recalled the gender ambivalence of the un-sooth unsighted one, and considered how nothing on earth could be trusted to be as it once was. 

Fearless boy, he may not have recalled anything of the sort, as he approached the rim of the water through the mists gathering around his ankles. No voice whispered in his ear, drawing him away from the shadows growing in the evening air. To the pool came he, and looked he therein. If an empty page can be as an abyss, how much more cavernous the depths of a thrice lit pool in a hidden heart of the deep places of the wild? Shall I paint for you what he saw? Alas, I could not, even if I would, for what he saw there was for him, and will remain his alone. Or at least, you will not have it from my pen, and if another will spill to you what would otherwise be private, be that upon that unworthy's soul. 

Ah, suffice to say that into the abyss he did he stare, and when it stared back he did not look away. The weight of so heavy a stare proved to be more than even this well accustomed youth could bear. When that stare hooked deep into the young man's soul, as had so many stares dared before, he could not forebear and into that same abyss he fell, and in falling, was undone. 

Let us, there, be done with the boy, as he is no more and merits no more of my good time and ink. As a tree pays no mind to a leaf once loosed, and like such a leaf has he fallen, and even as a leaf has his passing gone apparently unremarked, and therefore can be not further cause for remarking. It is true enough that his fall did precipitate my own rise, so while we move on let us not be altogether unappreciative of his youthful foibles. I would recount the manner of my ascent, and the happenings of it, but recent developments have left me less energetic than I might have anticipated. I will close on the fact of that ascent, for I am risen. I am risen, indeed. 


~ Journal Entry

Let me consider how, then, to gather the threads of so rent a tapestry, and how to reorder their weaving anew? If beginning again, then again to the beginning return, and my beginning must be with the dawning, or rather blooming, say nothing of the cursed dawn, of my own awareness of my being. I came to what sense remained to me on the dark bank of a river so deep as to pretend motionlessness. Upon the river surface danced the reflection of the whole world, save only my own self. 

Scant seconds, hours, weeks I spent hoping to steal a glimpse of my elusive twin. Holding my hand over the water did produce a watery mate who waved in response to the movement of my own hand, an experiment borne out with both feet and even locks torn from my own head, but when that head did consider the water direct, no reflected self gazed back. I felt teased by my own reflection, as though it would duck out of sight at the hint of my inspection, like a lover slipping ever out the window as the jealous spouse returns home. Was I then my own jealous spouse? I explored every means at my disposal, even going so far as to lower my body into the water to examine whether my reflection be hiding on the underside of the surface, though the fierce current did threaten to sweep my grip from the bank. After my skin did feel as though I had slept on my entire body wrong, every inch pricked as with a thousand needles. All my efforts as vain and yet exhausting as pushing a boulder up a steep hill, only to watch it tumble down to be fodder for labor anew.

Oh, and how I laboriously sought my self there, but I was torn from this pursuit by a sensation, so familiar, of an attentive other focused upon what could be said to be me. I tore my nigh frantic gaze from that mischievous not-mirror, and whom should I see across the riverine abyss but the very god honored by that sightless (though perhaps not so insightless) seer, honored, that is, with his body if not his tongue. The flight-footed one stood, hands a-hip, head at a quizzical slant, the half-hint of a smile on lips from which the words, 

"Excuse me, your pardon, I beg, but you have the very look of someone something mislaid, unless I miss my call."

"Has not the Inconstant One been known as perspicacious and double tongued, as I am indeed both someone mislaid and have myself something mislaid, and no amount of investigation nor clever trickeration have availed for either loss a remedy." 

"Excellent! It is a day of rare fortune, indeed, for trickeration and loss are my forte and delight. Perhaps you might allow one such as myself to bring to the matter what aid as I can?"

"Esteemed One, do me this kindness, and spare me the dissemblance, for well are both you and your prowess known to me. Nonetheless would I wager that this thing I have lost might evade even your immortal search, good sir."

"Fortune follows fact finding, I often find. It does usually behoove me to track that thing lost from that last point not lost. how came you to this bank, for it can not be here your loss was lost? Indeed, your face is still flush with life. How did you persuade the stoic boatsman to convey you hence? Could you have bribed him? Or did you simply intimidate him with the latent threat of your manly bravado?"

Upon these words did the god plop himself down right upon the bank of the river, his watery inversion staring up at me (down at me?), like a little bat-god hanging from the water's edge, and I there recalled the story of my coming, in as much as I could recall. He did stop me with a hand when I reached my current dilemma, interjecting

"Upon my name, it can not be your own reflection that is your loss?"

"Reflections mean so little to you?"

"Nothing of the sort, but then your wager is lost, now in turn, for your reflection I have found! In fact, I do spy it even now, by your very feet, just there." 

To a spot on the rivers surface did he gesture, the delight on his face so very like a child who has solved a puzzle. 

"Milord, trickeration indeed be your forte and delight. My feet I see, and the water thereby, but no softly floating features mine. It does appear that I am from myself obscured, though not from you."

"Methinks your dilemma at least, if not your reflected countenance, grows more clear. Indeed, it does seem only yourself from whom your reflection hides. Such oddities are not so uncommon here. Come away with me, then, and rest upon my divine word that your mirrored self abides even as does your standing self, in all its aesthetic glory. I swear it by the very water upon which your reflection does fall."

"Elevated One, I dare not, indeed, it seems I can not. I am fastened to this very spot as well as if my feet had sprung roots and tethered me in place. I can not but believe that my next look will secure for me myself again. I could no sooner depart this bank without assurance of my reflection than I could leave without my very soul, I fear."

"Really? Funny you should mention that. I had something similar in mind, myself."

So saying, sans second beat did the god alight upon the bank at my side, which produced in me but the slightest of starts before recalling that the rules that govern the movement of beings applied not to gods, less so to this most pernicious of divines, and ever so much less upon this Stygian shore. This, I think, might be a decent place to bring tonight's reverie to a close, with two youths standing shoulder to shoulder on the bank of a river, for all the world appearing as companions, friends, even. I would be remiss if I did not note, however, that that appearance would be a lie, for mortals can no more be the friend of a god than could dolls engage in the relationship with their girls. 


~ Journal Entry

Upon our return to that dark shore, note that there was a twinkle in the god's eye when he turned to face me, and that fact in conjunction with the knowledge of this particular deity might have been of some benefit to the fresh me standing there on the twisted bank of a twisted river in a twisted reflection of the mortal plain, had that me stopped to consider such things. 

"Oh, dear boy, where ever is your poet? Have you no happy wordsmith to guide back out of the abyss into which you have fallen? Has any hero been so sorely treated? Did Homer to Hades abandon his Wanderer? Even Virgil be not so heartless as to strand his hero upon death's very shore. Have you no mule of magical mettle to carry your soul back to the sun-lit lands? Even the easterners know that it is not good for man to be alone, and to so abandon one so young is the very act of a madman, indeed. How, then, does one handle that?"

"Such aloneness can I verify, and in detail, and of poets, too, can I discuss at length, though I have never had occasion to consider one mine."

"For it is ever the curse of your own kind to be ever the object of your own fate, so rarely picking up the pen to scribe your own life's journey, and far too few of you ever do look up to see who is wielding the pen of your destiny. Such a fate too ignoble by far for one such as yourself, so lofty and beautiful. You do remind me of a boy that I might have been, an age and a lifetime ago."

"Lifting such a pen, or living such a life are beyond my present scope, rooted to this interminable bank, as I am."

Sly is the smile that does steal momentarily across those divine features before me, coloring the cherubic profile with a nearly demonic cast, then chased in turn by the guileless aspect of my youthful aide.

"Let me consider... Something given, something taken, and something left behind: being, feeling and seeing, it is the sum of what you are. Speak, then, and what assistance I can offer is yours."

Such a question, perhaps worthy of the sphinx herself. What would you ask of one divine? Whatever you would ask, a reminder would I offer: beware gods bearing gifts.

"On the very bank of Hades would you ask my desire? Here? What..."

"Let's say that here is but where you are. Here is a fluid concept, a chronological eddy, and here more so. I would more consider the who and the how of you, but such choices are your own, of course."

"Kind of you. The who and how of me? Who am I but the target for stares and desires, foil for the experience of others, subject to their emotional demands? I have been a Thing, not an 'I'."

"And something given, something taken, something left behind. That which traps you is not more than you, with you it came, and stays. Turn you, and look upon the door through which lies that world of lies. If you would return, turning is yours, and by fire from fire be redeemed. Your choice."

Slow was my turning, but behold, upon the bank did burn a terrific arch, lighting the night from within. Smaller steps have, perhaps, a greater distance bridged, but this distance from who one used to be and who they become is never a small distance. Upon that threshold did I turn once again to consider the bank, and the river, upon which stood the god, like unto me as to seem my reflected heart standing there in the arch-lit false dawn. We two, one death; but who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

 Se fini."


~ Journal Entry

I will bring my writing to a close. I count the number of entries and cannot believe it is only six days since the youth from whose ashes did I rise in phoenician splendor happen upon a pool in a forest. Can it be six days? Well if in such a span the eastern god did create the whole of the world, as alleged, why cannot I create a whole self in a similar time? Such has been my pursuit these last four nights, apart from my idle musings scratched herein. Through the fire I emerged, as iron tempered, as gold refined, if as wood charred, and as the youth I once was, scarred. I was as one born a second time and new to the world. I set about discovering who this new me is, and what the world is to him, thus far. 

Considered as well, have I, while engaging in this investigation, every word that did fall from that known patron of liars, politicians, and thieves. Something given, something taken, something left behind, eh? I produce then my Summa Reperta:

- My appearance is mine to command; I have but to consider an aspect to take it on. It does appear that the change is easiest when adapting entire forms, as opposed to aspects. For example, I can change my entire form to that of a wolf and range so for hours with ease, but holding my eyes in something resembling their wolf shape enough to retain their piercing ability to see in the dark, as I am doing at the moment, requires constant attention, but it appears to become easier with practice. Perhaps, like a runner, this is a skill in which I must build my stamina.

- I cannot feel emotion, but it does appear that I can smell it, or at least I can when I am in a wolf shape. Perhaps that is a sense, like the eyesight, that I can carry over. The stronger the emotion and the less clouded it is by the emotions of others, the clearer does the smell come through. It might not come as a surprise, but as a wolf, I also am capable of inspiring quite a lot of emotion in others. Fear, primarily. Like unto a dragon, I am exempt emotion's burn and yet retain the ability to sear others with the same, producing an aroma most sensational.

- I have no reflection, whether on pane or pool, glass or gleam. Unlike my bankside anxiety, however, there is no sense that my reflection had just slipped around the corner. Nor, I suspect, should there be. Very well. It is not so great a thing, perhaps, considering what I have gotten in lieu. 

- I recover instantly from any wound, save only those caused by fire. From those it appears I cannot recover at all. That, as it happens is a tricky thing indeed to discover about one's self. Do you know exactly how much sunlight your skin can absorb before it starts inflicting the most minute degree of damage. I hope, for your sake, you similarly find yourself in the intermittent shade of a deep forest when you find out. Yes, the last few days have been a bit hectic. 

Recounting: something given, taken, and left behind. Three categories, yet four changes, each change as much curse as blessing. Am I gifted, to be so master of any form, or bereft the singular form to call my own? Have I been robbed of my emotion, or given a brilliant new sense of the same? It does seem to me that my reflection is that left behind, but what is this written account but a reflection of a different manner? Have I been bestowed Achillean invulnerability, or stricken from the experience of the light? What a delightful dystopia.

And that, I think, is enough. There was evening, and there was mourning, my sixth night. I will pen no more, for if reflection be the price of my return I'll give Hermœjesty no reason to accuse me of delinquency. I will make out for Aeetes' shore of sorrows, as I have heard that there is a valley nearby that is covered across with forest, where I might explore my new self, and the range of its potentiality, further.

N. ~ D.