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 Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 2:12 pm
Fake Happy ( music) Word Count: 668
It’s a split second decision, one he makes after a day in the dark room that Fiona keeps renting for him.
He’d made it when he was sitting on his bed, most recent photographs splayed across his bedsheets, while he picked through them trying to decide what he would do with each one. Beside the bed is a backpack, filled with the gifts given to him by Charlie and a few sweets that Danny had dropped off the other day.
Looking at the self-watering contraptions makes his stomach twist in a bad way because they’re a reminder that he hasn’t returned to Midgard since he foolishly believed Dia and she carved a letter into his chest in repayment.
It still aches, phantom pains that wake him up in the middle of the night when his trauma resurfaces in his dreams and he relives the event over and over again.
The picture he’s holding crinkles beneath his fingertips and the image is tarnished by the creases that appear over the glossy finish. It goes across the face of the person grinning at him and for a terrifying moment, Tristan can’t remember how to breathe.
He feels like his throat is closing up and he’s gasping for air, huffing like a dying fish on a pier. Green eyes squeeze shut and his hands go to the front of his shirt, where he twists the fabric in his hands until it’s bunched up and he can feel the scrape of his blunt nails against his chest. When his forefinger brushes the ugly bumpy scarring, he gasps and finds that he can breathe again.
It takes a minute, with lots of short pants of breath, but he manages to breathe normally and his heart seems to calm it’s thundering assault against his ribs.
Although ruined, the grinning face of Danny looks back at him from where it’d been tossed. Careful fingers attempt to smooth the photograph out, but there’s an ugly white crease that cuts across his face that irreparable.
While he knows that it’s just a photograph, Tristan still feels incredibly guilty.
There’s a lot that he feels guilty about; how flaky he tends to be, how he feels like he’s a burden on the woman kind enough to open her home to him and provide him with a means to earn income, how terrible of a friend he is, and how he doesn’t seem to be getting any better despite how hard he tries.
It’s been over a year now, he doesn’t know the exact date, but it’s been a year since he met Chronos and held the dying body of his sister in his arms. He doesn’t even remember her name and shame floods him every time he remembers that.
A year has passed since he left the smothering darkness that was chaos behind and yet it still chases him like a bad shadow, grabbing at his ankles because it’s desperate to drag him back into the darkness.
Tristan refuses to allow himself to sink, too many people have invested some part of themselves in him and he’s desperate to do anything to keep from letting them down. Another glance over to the pack doesn’t cause an attack, but it gives him an idea.
Midgard suffered, still suffers, without him. If he wants to do better, he should start there.
His photographs are collected into a neat stack and set on the dresser across from the bed. From the night stand he pulls out a pad of paper and pen, scrawling across it in hurried handwriting.
Taking a trip, don’t know when I’ll be back.
Tris
He knows he should leave more than that but he’s flying by the seat of his pants and has no idea what he hopes to accomplish, but up there, in space, there is a garden that is waiting for him so he’ll start there.
Slinging the pack over his shoulder, Tristan sets out to get supplies.
His phone sits on the bed, forgotten.
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Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:23 am
(( This is backdated to directly follow Fake Happy )) Hard Times (music)
Word Count: 540
His supplies weigh heavily on his shoulders, a backpack and duffle bag stuffed with everything he thinks he’ll need to get him by for a while. It’s not packed very well because Tristan’s done zero planning for this trip, like at all, but he’s determined to see it through.
Besides, if he tried to stop and actually think he wouldn’t go through with things and he’s tired of being a man of half measures.
The bags are easier to carry when he’s Midgard but his movements are slower and he feels like there are more things that weigh him down. Things that sit on his chest and collapse his lungs, the ones that make it hard for him to breathe and the ones that make it so that focus is difficult because he’s too busy concentrating on keeping him standing.
His scar hurts.
He carries on anyway.
.
It takes him forty-five minutes to go from the clearing to his wonder and it’s time that’s plagued with almost attacks, the kind that wrap around his throat and choke him until he collapses to his knees. His head is dizzy, his stomach churning, and everything he’s eaten in the last twelve hours threatens to come back up.
His hands make fists in the grass, crushing the blades between his nails and palms, while trying to remember in, out, in, out….breathe.
Getting to Midgard is difficult, but somehow he pushes through.
.
Amelia is waiting for him, as she always seems to be.
Her hands are tucked behind her back, shoulders square, and the purpleness of her eyes seems dark as though she’s wrought with concern. There are no smiles that greet him, only somberness and once again, Tristan worries that he is too rash and ill-prepared.
“I did not think you would return.” Amelia’s voice is soft and hesitant, like she can see all of the cracks that have formed along his skin and she’s worried that any amount of pressure can cause them to fracture until her knight is no more than shattered pieces on the floor.
“Why?” His voice is steadier than he expects and a small swell of pride fills him.
His ancestor looks troubled, lips pressing together and eyes closing before she speaks. “Quite a bit of time has passed since your last visit, that is all.”
He hears what she isn’t saying, Because every time you come back, you look more ready to fall apart.
Her gaze returns to him and he can tell that she’s taking in the newness of his uniform and how he should hold himself more confidently but that he’s struggling to hold himself together at all.
“I see you’ve achieved knighthood.” Were she not being so gentle and cautious, Midgard would think that she is proud.
“Not without difficulty.” His chest aches at the reminder and his hand presses against the space over his scar, wincing as he is reminded of the costs he continues to pay. “How is the garden?” He asks with a trembling voice.
He doesn’t know why he asks when he knows the answer.
“I’m afraid…”
Green eyes close and he struggles to steady himself. “That’s okay,” he croaks, hands trembling against his tunic. “I’ll start again.”
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Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2018 1:32 pm
Thin Air ( Music) Word Count: 1,598
He’s been at Midgard for four days before he’s brave enough to venture out back.
Amelia watches him, quietly and without judgment, but he feels her silent questions as surely as the tunic on his back. But, his ancestor’s curiosity goes unspoken and he’s grateful for it. He knows that she worries about him.
He worries about himself too.
In the days that pass, he busies himself with unpacking.
Amelia shows him to the least damaged room in the building. The drapery is still faded and tattered and the place could use some dusting but...it has the perks of the knowledge that it might be the only room no one has died in.
Tristan counts his small blessings because he’s not sure he even deserves those.
There’s a dresser in the room that he unpacks his bag into. Miraculously, there is no clutter for him to clean out and the wood creaks with age but the piece of furniture is clearly well built, capable of standing the passage of time with minimal damage.
Nearly everything he’s brought can be tucked away in the top two drawers and he’s not sure if he should be concerned about that or not. In fact, the only things that don’t fit are…
…
…..
Charlie’s gifts to him.
Realizing they’re there reminds him of why he’s come and suddenly, he feels queasy.
They don’t leave the bag.
Obsessively, Tristan cleans the room.
With the help of Amelia, he finds a bucket and some cloth that serves no purpose that he can use as rags. He has to build a fire in the kitchen to boil the water, but the wonder’s plumbing appears intact and function and he’s grateful for that.
He has to peel off his coat and he leaves it folded neatly on the edge of the unused bed. His bracers are removed beforehand, set atop the piled fabric and his boots are peeled off as well.
He doesn’t want to scuff the floor as he cleans.
The water scalds his hands, in a focusing sort of way. It makes him hiss and his skin turns an ugly, angry red that he ignores because he wringing out one of the makeshift rags and scrubbing the floor without another thought.
Amelia watches from the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and her hood drawn up over her long purple hair so that it shadows her expression. Tristan doesn’t look up, but he catches the pursing of her lips and the way her fingers dig into her arms from the corner of his eye.
Neither of them say anything and after an hour, Amelia leaves.
Tristan’s only halfway across the floor and he’s been scrubbing the same spot for ten minutes. His hands are raw, but he doesn’t stop.
After the bedroom, he scrubs the hallways.
The project is a long one, but it gives him something to focus on. Something that doesn’t take a knife to his nerves and flay them apart.
When he finishes, his hands have been scrubbed until they’re raw and pink and the knees of his trousers are worn. As always, Amelia looks concerned while she watches from the end of the hallway but she says nothing.
Except when she notes that he’s failed to eat, again.
“I understand there is something going on with you that you don’t wish to discuss and I respect that,” she says as she watches him wring out another rag, “but you cannot burn yourself at both ends, Tristan.”
Her voice is sharp enough to give him pause when he dumps the water out. Green eyes lift from his task, hidden beneath the curly mop of brown that hides his gaze.
“I’m taking enough care of myself, Amelia.” Her name passes through his lips with a hint of mind your business but it’s the only sign of his weariness or agitation. The rest of him is hesitant, hands wrung tightly before him and his body trembles even as his gaze remains steady.
“I don’t feel as if I ask much of you, New Midgard.” Amelia’s posture straightens and Tristan feels smaller for it, like he’s about to wilt beneath her pink-eyed gaze. “But I do expect honesty from you.”
Tristan wants to argue, but his mouth stays clamped shut and his head hangs with shame.
“You haven’t eaten since you arrived. It’s been two days. You cannot care for Midgard if you are not caring for yourself too.” Her reprimand is gentle but firm and it stings, all the same, leaving Tristan with the feeling that he needs to defend himself bubbling hotly in his belly.
“Your role is to help guide me when I ask for help and I’m not asking for it.” He snaps, looking up sharply.
To her credit, Amelia does not flinch and keeps her steely-eyed gaze on his irritated one.
“I am also here to remind you when you are being foolish. Especially when no one else can, or will.” Her hands fold behind her back and she regards him carefully.
Silence stretches between them and shame creeps up Tristan’s neck until it stains his cheeks red. Eventually, the quiet breaks, with Amelia taking a step back when she chooses to speak up.
“Very well then.” Her lips purse together, eyes narrowed, and her nose wrinkles. “If that is what you think, new Midgard, I will keep my thoughts to myself unless otherwise requested.”
He can’t miss the disappointment in her voice and without another word, the woman leaves.
Embarrassed, he shuffles over to the dresser and pulls a can of ravioli from the bottom drawer. Then, he eats it cold, pulling off the top and letting the thick and slimy sauce slide down his throat. It’s not the best meal he’s ever eaten but it’s not the worst either, even if cold canned ravioli isn’t ideal, but shame keeps him in the room and he’s not sure he deserves to warm it up anyway.
Amelia’s stopped watching him while he cleans.
In fact, his ancestor’s become more of a ghost and whenever he catches a glimpse of her...it’s so brief he wonders if he imagines it.
While she’s always been a quieter observer, her presence was still a comforting one and without it, the wonder feels painfully empty. It’s his fault, another thing he’s painfully aware of, but it leaves him unsettled anyway. Sometimes, Tristan imagines what the place might have looked like in it’s prime, bustling with the liveliness of all those skeleton’s he’s buried out back.
He’d ask Amelia, but he’s certainly screwed that up.
It’s what he deserves, he muses.
Tristan keeps his head down and cleans some more.
Another day passes before he breaks.
His room, the hallway, and the kitchen have been cleaned and scrubbed until thousands of years of dust have been wiped away and the space looks lived in, sorta.
Tristan catches Amelia’s shadow after he brings some water to a boil in the kitchen. (He’s discovered that the stove top works if he lights a fire beneath the oven.) Instinctively he’s abandoning his pot and flame and chasing after her, heart an erratic thing in his chest after panic surges through him.
“Amelia, wait!”
If she made noise when she walked, he thinks he would’ve heard her steps halt, but like with most things about the woman, she’s silent. Still, she stops and he feels his anxiousness recede enough to let him breathe.
Tension is wrought between her shoulders and Tristan can feel the way his nerves are trying to collapse his lungs until he struggles with every intake of air. Standing leaves him woozy, but he stays upright, taking uncertain steps towards Amelia.
“Did you need something, New Midgard?” He doesn’t understand how she can be so curt, but so gentle sounding at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” The admission leaves him like the wind being knocked out of him. It comes out in a rush, the words blurring together like he’s afraid that he’ll lose his nerve and not say it at all if he doesn’t spit it out right then. “You were concerned and...I lashed out.” He’s quiet for a moment, tongue pressed against his cheek. “I didn’t like that you were right, I’m sorry.”
Nervously, Tristan tugs his hands through his hair and can’t quite meet her gaze because he’s too busy hanging his head in shame.
Beneath is mop of curly brown locks, he thinks he sees her mouth twitch with a smile.
“I know you have demons that you aren’t ready to face yet, Tristan.” She’s facing him now, fingers laced together before her and resting against her pelvis. “But you don’t have to go it alone. Everyone needs a reminder when they’re too caught up in other things to make sure they’re at least okay.”
He nods, though he is unsure how he truly feels about her advice. It’s cryptic at it’s worst and comforting at it’s best, still, she’s willing to forgive him and he’ll take what he can get.
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
Tristan stands before the door that leads out back, to where a likely dead garden is waiting for him half-sprouted and now wilted above dirt that covers at least a thousand bones. His hand shakes when he reaches for the handle, the tha-thumping a rhythm he syncs his breathing to, but he closes his eyes and takes a breath.
He’s not ready to face all of his demons, but he wants to try and face this.
It’s a start.
That’s all he needs.
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Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2018 12:06 pm
Unsteady ( music) Word Count: 1007
Dirt is hard packed beneath his boots.
Before him rows of barely sprouted plants stretch across the uneven ground. A rush of mixed emotions flood him all at once and he has to grab ahold of the door frame to steady himself. Everything is a shade of yellow, mostly straw colored , or a shade of brown.
Either way, the color is a lifeless one.
Making himself step forward is a difficult task and it’s one that requires more energy than he really has to expend but he pushes forward anyway. If he doesn’t, Tristan knows that he’ll continue to put it off until everything he’s brought runs out and he’s forced to return home. Every step forward is an important one, but it’s even more important for him to keep from stepping backward.
Pebbles, loose dirt, and dead leaves crunch beneath the soles of his boots as he walks, each step tentative and careful. His hands shake at his sides and he had to actively work to keep the tremor from overtaking his entire frame. At least once he has to stop, close his eyes, and pause for breath.
It’s slow going, but he goes and that’s important.
Despite the deadness of the garden, Tristan is careful as he steps through it. The plants might not be alive, but he wants to treat them with care anyway.
Connie’s markers still live in the rows, nestled in the dirt like cheery reminders of where to find things, and he collects them, slowly and carefully, as he passes. Seeing them reminds him that he did not tell her where he was going when he left, he hadn’t told anyone except, technically, Fiona and even then...it’d been scrawled hastily on a piece of paper she might not have seen for days.
Once more he has to stop, wincing when he thinks of the friends he left behind. Bright and bubbly Charlie, patient and caring Fiona, quiet and sweet Danny. They deserve better than the friend he is to them now.
He’ll get there, he’ll be better. For them. For himself.
The markers sit in the palms of his gloves and he takes the time to count them and arrange them neatly. It’s a menial task, certainly, but it helps soothe his frayed nerves a bit. Then, they’re pocketed because he hopes they’ll be usable again.
Starting over is less than idea, but sometimes, Tristan has learned, it is a necessary step in order to recover and move forward.
.
Each day is taken slowly.
Tristan gets up, makes the bed, and warms up water to make one of the oatmeal packets he was smart enough to buy during his initial supply run. It’s not the most appealing breakfast, but it’s quick, simple, and filling.
He still isn’t eating as much as he knows that he should be, but he’s eating at least once a day. Amelia insists that breakfast is the most important, so that’s what he prioritizes. Besides, it helps him build a routine that he can grasp onto tightly. Small things help and breakfast has become one of them.
Some days he washes up, cold water helping to wake him, and others he gets right to it.
Regardless of how his mornings begins, it always takes him twenty minutes or more to make it out the back door. Those days are the hardest, with his fears crawling into his throat and closing his airwaves, with his anxiety grabbing ahold of his rapidfire heard and squeezing it until he’s dizzy. Any time he makes it through the doorway, it’s a victory.
His goal is to win once a day, then work up to twice a day.
Sometimes, Amelia talks with him, other days are wrought with choking panic attacks. Most of the time he’s able to turn the knob and step outside.
When he can’t?
He puts his energy into cleaning, the menial task is strenuous but soothing and the wonder looks more alive with each day.
Every night he retires to the bed boe weary and exhausted because it’s the only way he can sleep. His thoughts are a desperate buzzing in his heads and he works until he’s too tired to think. Every morning, he gets back up to do it again.
.
The days he works on the garden are the most taxing.
Most of the time, he works without gloves and earns a layer of dirt he can’t seem to scrub out no matter how hard he tries beneath his fingernails. It likes to dust his cheeks too, so that whenever he catches a glimpse of his reflection he can see how the sun tries to stain his skin and how the dirt has made a dusty home across his face.
The knees of his pants are wearing thin, the fabric stained from the hours he’s spent crawling across the garden carefully uprooting the dead pants while attempting to salvage what he can.
He knows it’s a futile effort but he cannot stop from trying, he’s clinging to the hope that he hadn’t failed completely because he’s not ready to give up.
Working almost tirelessly, his fingers become stained with an earthy brown from the way he much dig into the ground with fingers better suited for literature than gardening. But, if he’s learned anything during his time here about himself, it’s that if he doesn’t cling tightly to his maybes then he’ll spiral down a path he’s determined to stay away from.
When he uproots the last of the once budding bulbs, Tristan is forced to accept that this is a venture that has failed. It stings, because it was the first real thing he tried to do with himself after he fled but he knows that not everything can be a victory, big or small. He has to take things one step at a time
So, he reminds himself that this is not the end and that has to be enough for now.
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Posted: Mon May 07, 2018 10:05 am
Luckie Street (music)
Word Count: 1190
He loses track of the days that pass easily. If it weren’t for the journal he’s taken to writing in, Midgard would have forgotten how long he’s been away, even now, the number of days is incorrect as he’s only started marking them after he apologized to Amelia however long ago. His irregular eating habits have made it hard to use rations as a counting method after all.
Still, as the days pass the wonder looks more and more alive and he spends his time tirelessly cleaning and tending to the things that rely on him. Some days are still more difficult than others, but Midgard has started counting even the smallest things as a victory. It feels silly, doing so, but he needs every little thing these days to remember why he keeps going and that not all is lost just because he stumbles or falls.
It’s a victory when he’s able to get out of bed in the morning and build a fire to heat the water he needs to make his breakfast of oatmeal when he gets up. It’s a bigger victory, the days where he makes it through the door that leads him to the graveyard garden he neglected like he’s prone to neglecting himself. He counts the days he manages to eat more than once victories too.
Midgard spends his time between cleaning and tilling the grounds. Every room that is cleaned is something that he takes pride in even if he spends too much time shuffling around on the floor trying to pull a thousand years’ worth of dust from the grout in the flooring.
And, the days where he takes breaks, at Amelia’s assistance of course, well, those are perhaps his greatest victories during his time at his wonder because he’s trying to learn how to take care of himself too.
“Your needs matter,” Amelia had told him.
Midgard knows that she is right, so he’s trying, almost desperately, to remind himself I matter too at least once a day.
~
His favorite room on Midgard is the Library despite it being arguably the hardest of them to clean. It’s filled with more books than he can read, shelves built into the walls of the building and stacked from floor to ceiling. Surprisingly well preserved tables and chairs litter the room along with worn couches and loungable chairs, of which the one nearest to the window is his favorite.
Most of the books are in foreign languages, collected from places across the galaxy and complied into one place of research. A learning tool, surely, if he could understand any of the script that looks more like scribbles than letters to his eyes.
Amelia can offer him no insight. “I understood it all once,” she tells him, glancing at him from over her shoulder as she peers out his favorite window. “But like everything, it was lost with the passage of time.”
Her sigh is a heavy one and Midgard wonders how she managed, all those years as a soul trapped in the wonder with no one for company, not even the books she might have taken solace in at one time.
He also wonders how she managed to keep her shoulders straight and her resolve strong after a millenium alone.
If he could have half of her strength, he think he could survive anything.
But, not being able to understand anything he’s pretending to read doesn’t stop him from opening the books and letting his fingers run across the carefully printed script scrawled across pages and pages.
He thinks it’s therapeutic, in it’s own way, to go through things pretending that he understands and he can learn because he’s making things up as he goes.
Now, he thinks, I just need to learn how to apply this to reality and then maybe I can take some steps forward without stepping back.
~
His supplies begin to dwindle and he’s cleaned every single room in the research school-like wonder at least once. It reaches a point where he’s just doing thing reflexively and not because it’s needed and his body suffers from the wear and tear without the nutrition to go with it.
But, it doesn’t occur to him that perhaps it’s time for him to go back to Destiny City until Amelia says something.
“What more do you wish to accomplish, Tristan?”
He blinks up at her, chin lifting so that he can look up from the book he’s pretending to read. “What do you mean?”
“When you came here, you treated it like an escape but also servitude, now that you are running out of ways to serve, what are you hoping to accomplish?” Her question is innocent enough, but still unsettling and he has to close the book to press his fingers against his chest and count slowly so he remembers how to breathe and stave off an oncoming panic attack.
One.
Two..
Three…
Breathe.
“I--,” His mouth closes, forehead wrinkling and he shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Gently, like everything about her handling of him, Amelia goes, “then perhaps it’s time for you to go home.”
“Oh.”
“It’s been nearly five months New Midgard, don’t you think the people you left behind aren’t worried about you?” Her reprimand stings and he swallows in shame.
“I didn’t realize it’d been that long,” he admits and her smile is sad, but kind.
“Time passes quickly when you’re trying to outrun your demons.” From the way she speaks he knows it’s a lesson she learned firsthand and he yearns to ask but knows it’s a story for another time, another visit.
“Don’t worry so much about us, Tristan.” Every time Amelia calls him Tristan he feels a pang in his chest that he cannot decide if it is good or bad. “We’ll still be here when you return. Hopefully your friends are waiting for it too.”
With a nod, he shakily gets to his feet and returns to his room to collect his things.
As much as he hates it, he knows she’s right. Amelia is always right and he should learn to listen the first time.
It’s reassuring at least, knowing that she still has much to teach him and that’s the reason he’s able to bring himself to go home.
~
He finds himself in the very same meadow he left from, the grass green beneath his boots and wild flowers having sprung to life with the warmer weather. It’s a stark contrast to what he remembers when he left and it is only then that he understands how long he’s been away.
The trek back to Fiona’s is long, his body weary from running on fumes for so long.
Expectedly, Fiona is out and his phone is dead but when he plugs it in he finds several unanswered texts and missed phone calls. But, more importantly, is a reminder that lights up his screen.
Danny.
Without another thought, Tristan is changing, hurrying to make it to his friend’s home.
~
“I hope I’m back in time,” Tris says, sheepishly smiling at the man standing on the other side of the apartment door.
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