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 Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 1:29 am
The water came up to her chest by the time she heard the flutter of descending wings. Arawn, the owl who had found her on her first visit to Avalon, perched gingerly on her shoulder and preened her wet hair with that wickedly sharp beak. "Next time," she told him flatly, "I would like a boat." Then, of course, her next step was over a shelf of water, and all Tate could concentrate on was swimming.
She had never been very proficient, and then was no exception. Through a combination of a rough approximation of the breast-stroke and a dead float on the waves, she made it to the tar-covered wooden pylon of an ancient bridge. Which, she thought bitterly, was a very polite way of saying she slammed into a pylon and grabbed onto it so that she wouldn't be carried further towards the sheer cliffs of Avalon. It took her a good five minutes to convince herself to try climbing up, but she finally did. When she pulled herself onto the salt-eaten planks of the dock, she was not gratified to hear her ancestor's light and airy statement: "Oh, yes, I suppose the boat would have weathered away. Pity, that."
Tate's response was immediate and crude. "Go ******** yourself." She tugged, hard, at the knot in her scarf; it came free only reluctantly, pulling on itself and stretching the soft cashmere. That got deposited on the dock, shortly followed by the heavy woolen coat. Her cell phone--jesus, how had she forgotten she had that--she threw to the gravel path leading away from the dock. This entire time, Nimue watched, slightly befuddled, as Tate shed more wet clothing. When she was left in a ribbed tank top and her jeans, shoes also given up as a salt-logged lost cause, she said, "Okay, what do I do now?"
Perhaps feeling chastened, or maybe just trying not to sound amused, Nimue sighed: "Go to your tree, I'll meet you there." And then the ghost just vanished, leaving Tate to gape and then stalk angrily along the path, stones digging into her feet. It gave her time to think, time to calm down, and most of all, time to remember where she was, and why she was there.
Avalon, she thought, probably modeled for every portrait of Eden. The neutral greens and grays faded through the mist, turning so brilliant and saturated as they drew closer that they almost hurt her eyes to see. Rocky crags and heavy cliffs probably inspired no thoughts of paradise, but now that she was looking--really looking--she saw blackberries growing wild, vines of grapes twining up trees, hothouse tomatoes twirling loosely around the grapes. "They're not even in season in greenhouses," she said to herself, crouching to pluck a handful of grapes. The taste was sour, not sweet, but it felt like such sacrilege to reject something from her own home. The land had grown wild, something she'd never noticed at the Surrounding--even the grasses of Camelot had seemed tame.
She stopped once she became aware that she had passed the cliffs, passed the trees, and now she stood before a growing apple tree. Her ancestor was false-sitting on a rock, dark hair bound up on top of her head. Arawn waited high in a tree, golden eyes keen and bright. "Now what," asked Tate, scraping her feet through the grass. One of them was bleeding, and it left too-bright stains on her vision. "What do I do now?"
Nimue rose, and put one ghostly hand on one of the thicker branches. "You need to free this," she instructed, fingers tightening. Tate knew that her ancestor couldn't interact with the physical world, her own experiment in touching the ghost notwithstanding. She stood before her tree, placed a hand through Nimue's and shuddered. Without questioning--completely obedient, she thought, the words heavy with irony even in her own head--she yanked at the branch, taking it down and off with a little elbow grease and determination.
"Please don't tell me my next weapon is this branch," she said, holding it up so Nimue could see it. (Even a moment's obedience was apparently too much. Tate was not sorry.)
The dark-haired knight shook her head sharply. "Not at all," she said. "But it requires refining. Although--you should be able to attain your next stage--"
Tate tried, focusing, but she felt nothing. Not the cooling embrace of her power, not the wind. "Nothing," she said.
"Maybe it's different now that it's not just a change of clothes," sighed Nimue. "Well. Come along to the sept now. You've things to do."
word count: 780
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Posted: Sun Aug 12, 2012 4:24 am
"Things to do" apparently equaled up to digging out a rusty old set of carving tools and sitting the ******** down to carve a ******** branch. Tate wasn't exactly a woodcarver; it wasn't exactly the kind of thing that she aspired to do with her life, and her first attempts to carve some kind of sense into the leafy branch were better compared to hacking than actual artistry. She ignored Nimue's well-intentioned attempts to interrupt, and bit her lip so hard she drew blood as she stripped bark away from the soft apple wood.
"You have to concentrate on why you're doing this," Nimue cried, gesturing towards the wood with both hands. "The magic won't work otherwise."
Why was Tate doing it? Well, ******** hell, wasn't it obvious? She was tired of being weak again, being a victim, being everything but strong and powerful. She was tired of having to hide behind other people, behind Taranis, behind Parker, behind Wolframite where-ever the ******** he was. Tired of snotty Negaverse General-Kings, tired of monsters, tired of being scared and alone and always less.
She realized she was nothing without Avalon, nothing but a target and a power source. Without Avalon, Tate became a nothing-note, a person without importance or meaning at all! She could try to ignore it, had tried, but it was true; Avalon, the island, Avalon, the knighthood she'd been born to bear, it was what made her worthwhile, it was what made her an utter truth and a person of significance, to be reckoned with.
Avalon made her strong, and proud, and beautiful (in as much as purpose made anyone beautiful, purpose and justice and just actions). It helped her deal with everyday life, and gave her a purpose when things seemed darkest, when she thought for sure that it all wasn't worthwhile, when the endless cycle of work-school-work-sleep-work-school-work-sleep got to be too much, she could be Avalon, she could think: This is helping me prepare to protect others. Because I'm doing this, I know what's right and wrong. Because I know what's right and wrong, I don't have to worry about getting on the wrong side of the law. I am a good person because I can do this.
"You look angry," ventured Nimue, worriedly. "You can take a break, you know."
"Go away," grated Tate, but she blinked at the branch in her hands. It was stripped of bark and twig, now a reasonably straight piece of pale apple-white wood, with a few dents. Did this give the branch personality?… Um, only as far as totally unprofessional was a personality, which it might be. She knew a few people like that…
And really, why should she stress so much over a stupid wand? "Are you done," asked Nimue, and when Tate nodded she asked, "Already?"
Tate held up the wand before her and intoned, "I pledge my life and loyalty to Earth, and to Avalon. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine." That was what they wanted, wasn't it? For her to promise Avalon, the source of her power, that she'd only use her abilities in the course of fulfilling whatever duty she owed the place? If only it were set out clearly, if only she could simply make everything make sense and fall into order, then she could have a true purpose beyond nebulous "help"--
But the vow was enough for now, and before her eyes the rough-hewn wand smoothed itself out, grew a pattern of vines that slowly faded the same shade as the apple wood. She held her breath, wondering and hoping and then her damp jeans were replaced by clean, dry cotton, the waterlogged converse sneakers became knee-high boots with buttons trailing up the sides to the cuffs. Her tunic, green and gold-edged velvet, hung in heavy folds; she held her breath and smiled at the sleeves that covered her wrists now. "Avalon Squire," she breathed, only to herself, and she thought: strong and proud and beautiful.
She was all of those things, and now she was ready to go home.
word count: 703
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