Eleven years later

 I drug my blade across its neck with every ounce of strength I had left, and pushed through what had to be bone, until its head was eighty percent off. 

Then it got back up.  Usually that does the trick.

I'm not saying I behead creatures often. I still don't really have the knack for it I guess, or the strength, but its a good deterrent.

So I'll spare you the gory details of this misshapen creature, vaguely reminiscent of a feline predator. Suffice to say, I'm typing an entry here, and it is not.

I've been thinking, as I trek back to the 'Underworld' or whatever the hell to call it. There's a lot of emphasis on being cool I think. I'm as guilty of it or moreso than most. I need to stop doing that. We all like the idea of being skilled or strong or dangerous, it gives us all a great sense of domination I guess. That primal urge to be alpha.  I know that want well, it was the want to be special that put me where I am, that put that blade in my hand, and chose to kill several people. Because I needed to be the strong one, the special one.

But I also don't want to seem nonchalant about it either.  I mean, here I am, in whatever feylands this world is, trying to find a purpose for myself, I have a faecat named Chonk, and I'm a one-armed...FUCK dammit, I'm trying to make myself sound cool again.

God dammit this is hard not to do.

I almost called myself a swordsman, how laughable is that?  I have NEVER had a lesson with this damn thing. I just try to do them before they do me, thats it. There's no skillful riposte, or gleaming blade edge.

Honestly, I think this sword does most of the work for me.

And now I'm faced with a question.  I see all the lands of the FEARs about, more or less. Its a territory game here near the rabbit hole that I fell down. So what do I do now? Do I try to kill one if I get the chance? Do I not do that? What's my role here nowadays, my purpose?  I don't know.

I want to do good. I want to do some good.

I just don't know how to do it.

Today

Today feels different, special, doesn't it?

Exilis Veritas

 I couldn't tell you how long I walked. More often than not, I would find some place, or some creature, observe it, not get involved, and be on my way.

You know, like high school.

I started to wonder about the differences between the strange, fantastical world before me, and the nightmarish hell that was closest to Earth.  Back where it all began.

God damn, it felt weird to say something like that. First, that I was actually NOT on Earth, a planet that was meant to hold the entirety of my life, and Second, to feel like that my life has had a real adventure. I wasn't meant for adventure, or terror. I was meant to push pencils, or whatever the modern day equivalent is, 'pound keys' I suppose. 'Push buttons' is better. Regardless, this was a life I had stupidly dreamed of, and fate decided to give me what I wanted.

I can't remember the quote, but I can paraphrase.

"When we're young, we all have amazing dreams, we have wild ideas about what we want in life.
As we grow older, we shift our goals to something else. A home, security, maybe a family. maybe even a picket fence. But those dreams we had, they don't just disappear. They sit there, like fallen leaves, just under the snow. 

And every now and then, every so often, fate will dust off one of those leaves, and send it trailing your way just to see what happens.

We are all bound to pick it up."

Front Mission 4, ladies and gentlemen.

I've been a murderer now, (still am), I've been a counselor, and a victim. I don't know if I've got anything more left in the tank. Like, what's my end purpose? Am I to struggle? To rise above?

Shit, that does NOT sound like me.  My one great chance to do some good, ended up with Matchstick dead, me technically responsible for his death, and ending up losing an arm, gaining a fae cat who had been oddly pensive of late.

I stopped on a brilliant, emerald hill and sat on the ground. For lack of anything else to do, I started just digging at the ground idly with my little sword...or big knife. I looked over at Chonk, and just asked him my thoughts. "Does purgatory absolve you of anything? Like...I was punished for what I did. I accept that, and I just can't make peace with it."

Chonk looked at me without a response.

I pressed, "I guess it is a pretty human thing, to think of your life as being on a scale. Paragon and Renegade. Doing good things doesn't erase the bad things you do.... 'bad things'. It was fucking murder, not something so nebulous as unpaid parking tickets. What would I have to do to get a clear conscience?  I've already died."

Chonk meowed at me.  I snorted and got back up. I always heard that the soul only blooms under struggle. The soul only heals in peace. I've had some peace of late, and as I turned back to the east, back towards the Underland, I decided to try struggle again.

No Where, No One, Nothing

I've kept to myself a lot of late.  Sometimes I go outside and deal with Chonk, sometimes I just wait.  Most of the times I wait.  Wyatt doesn't really like to teach, and I think he only does when he gets fed up with me hanging around.

I can do that. I excel at hanging around, hell it was practically my job before all this.

Chonk either won't or can't go inside his little shack, I don't know if its a Fey thing or a 'possibly immortal possible cowboy with a gun' thing.  The guy's got iron in a land that seems to be rather anathema to it.

Curiously, if thats the case, Chonk doesn't seem to care much about my short sword.   Hmmm, I wonder what all that artificer Dal Matia did that I don't know about?

Regardless of whatever fey chicanery is going on, I've thrown myself forward into whatever the hell it is I'm doing now.

Wyatt doesn't give it a name, and I refuse to call it something so stupid as 'soul burning' or whatever, because that sounds emo as FUCK, and while I may be privvy to the ole brooding behavior, I do not look good with a studded collar on, I assure you.

Or whatever the hell emos wear.  I should've said eye shadow.

I've been 'burning' days when i train with him. Says that you sacrifice a tiny bit of who you are in a single moment. Usually, its been things like sprinting around the cabin.

Wyatt took things up a notch today. He pulled iron on me, and fired.

Now, I'm not going to say I looked all Matrix-y and did a bend-backwards dodge under the bullet.

But I totally bent backwards Matrix-y and fell on my ass.

Ladies.

He laughed.  I yelled at him. He raises the gun towards his shack and fires again. I flinch. At least its not at me.

There's no registering of the bullet on his little wood place.  I tell him I get it, that he fired a blank.  He laughs some more at my expense. I let it go. The old man's got his fun, and I have a small affinity for Sam Elliott so I switch gears.

"That was some sort of instinct test. See if I can react by instinct."

"I'd say! I haven't seen anyone cower that fast in ages."

I scowl down at Chonk and ignore him, he's getting underfoot as we walk back to the cabin.

"Go eat a rat or something." I mutter, as I wait for Wyatt's response.

The old man holsters his weapon and lets out a sigh. He mutters something I missed as I taunt the faeline a little.

Patience.

We get up onto his deck, and Wyatt stops in the doorway. He steps inside, and puts his hand on the door as he does. As I move to walk in behind him, I find the door in my face. A bit flustered, I stop in my tracks and step back, the door closes before me, and I hear the subtle motion of wood drug on wood.

He locked the door on me.

I eyed Chonk, and after a moment I sat down on the stoop. My voice was low, as I consulted with the native. "I guess that was that."

"It always is." he replies with no help whatsoever.

I tell him as much and follow up.

"Whelp...I don't think I'm a lost cause, so I think this is the gentle nudging of the baby bird out of the nest."

"And we all know what cats do to birds."

I remain silent for a moment, then I set myself, and stand, "I've got to stop handing you straight lines."

Its time to go...somewhere at least. Maybe that old man taught me what I needed. Maybe not.

Maybe this old gunslinger has a fight left in him. Maybe not.

"Please, you're anything but straight."

I sigh, and pick a direction.  The east had the hills I came from. That would eventually lead back to the Fears. Here in...fae land or whatever the hell it was, it was far more pleasant.  Here I was learning, and not just trying not to die.  I picked up a stick and threw it into the air, twisting my wrist as I did, It spins through the air in a circle and lands with the smaller end pointing what I generously deem 'south'.

I put my hand on the hilt of my short sword and look down at my cat. After a few moment's begrudging silence, I speak to him, "You're my friend too, Chonk."

South I go.

The Weird Wild West

I looked down at the old tin cup in my hand. It was awkward. Something that was the 'next best thing to coffee' was in it. It was pretty disgusting.

We had gotten past the initial standoff, shotgun 'Git Off Mah Land' traditions and all. I played stupid, which wasn't much of a stretch and eventually he decided I was less trouble to deal with than to shoot.

I kinda think maybe he didn't have much in the way of bullets, but I wasn't one to really call that bluff.

His name was Wyatt Carsten, and the man must've walked off the set of Tombstone, give or take the bare feet, or patched up clothes.

I shook my head, a bit of a wry look on my face, "I'm not immortal. That's just silly."

He gave me one of those bushy eyebrow raises, then said in a perfectly reasonable tone, "You'd know, wouldn't you?"

I tried not to roll my eyes, "I'm not saying there aren't immortals, pretty sure I've encountered one or two of them before. But those were creatures, things from here it seemed. Immortal people? Well sure, I can even buy that. I'll even bet that you are one yourself, or the next best thing to it, but me? No, I'm certainly not. I've got proof."

Wyatt drew out a knife of an odd yellowish color and began to work a piece of wood in his hands. That was a guy thing, if you don't understand. Most men don't communicate eye to eye. Eye contact still has this real primal 'challenge or be challenged' aspect to it, when its with a stranger. Looking away after someone makes eye contact is still this really tiny sense of loss or cowing. Working on something, like polishing a gun, or whittling, they give you a menial task to focus your eyes on so you can look away, have a perfectly reasonable conversation, and not just be two shmucks staring at the ground feeling awkward in an attempt to not feel awkward.

After six thick slices of the wood were cut free, he said, "An now you think I'm immortal."

I shrugged, "Nothing more than a guess. You said you recognized something about me. You made the claim first. You're also dressed for a period of time that I'm only familiar with from film. The actual Old West was...I want to say about a hundred years ago, more or less. Anyway, I figured like knows like."

He humphs softly, and more wood chips hit the floor, "A hunnert years."

I acknowledged, "Give or take, yeah. World's a lot different now. Even more now than when I last remembered it." I threw in that hint of my life to Wyatt, because it was something I wanted him to consider, maybe he'd even ask about it. He controlled the conversation. Hell, He didn't even let Chonk inside the house.  The faeline seemed alright with that, having quickly hidden beneath the porch.

He eventually asked, processing everything in a slow, methodical way. I told him.

I told him about the Wretched Man who I first wrote blogs about, the tall corpse-like figure with its skin stretched far too tight over its skeletal frame.

I told him about the writings, and the people I saw disappear, I ruefully talked about the propensity for nicknames and titles. He smirked a little at that part.

And then it went on to the Winter Solstice, the night that changed my life, and the stupid hubris that was my quest for glory, that left a young woman slain by my hand.

And then there was the Bleeding Tree. Mine Nemesis. That which claimed me as its own, and the bloodshed that followed.

With most stories, it would end with my death, bleeding out, huddled up against the tree, rapidly trying to one handed type that I did it, that I was finally a winner.

Except my story didn't end there.

It was the afterwards that he showed some interest. The Punishment as it were. The years and years of walking, the life of just fruitless searching for something I could never find. Feeding the Tree, or whatever it wanted from me. And then there was Jack.

I didn't name her, and I left her vague intentionally. No sense in sharing everything.

"A hunnert thousand years." Wyatt comments.

I shrugged, "I have no idea, but I was walking for what felt like an eternity."

"And you come to me, why?"

I mull it over. I wish at this point I had a whittlin stick of my own. First off, it just felt wholesome. It also gave me something to fidget with so I felt less awkward.  Of course, it'd be impossible to do one handed, so I guess it didn't matter.

I guess I need a hobby.

"I uh...want to get home." I said simply, "There's a way to get from here to there, even just between two places on Earth. We've got a name for it, I bet you know it by a different name. The Path of Black Leaves."  I speak of it with capitalized letters, to signify its importance.

He stops his knife stroke, regarded me and then looked back to his wood, and made a soft whistle. "Noctis Eater"

I look to him and away and back, and decided to agree, "Yeah that...sounds about right."  I continue, "I could come here, but not go back."

He leans back in his seat, and plants his knife on the table. "That...is because you're not a wizard or magician or whatever they call it now. You've got no 'words' on you."

The emphasis of Words was interesting.

I nodded, "Yeah, I fell into about everything that's happened with no training or knowledge."

He puts his feet up on the bench before him, and stretches out. "You can do that stuff on Earth because that's you, that's your home. But you're not home now." He pauses and pushes up his hat, and squints, "Wonderland?"

I correct gently, "Underland is the term I know." I make a motion with my hand to signify underneath, "Like its underneath Earth. The dimension next door as it were."

"Underland." He says again, then settles back down again, "Your Underland here doesn't respond to you, because it doesn't hear you. You've got no words to back it up."

Please oh please, teach me magic.

I swear he heard me, or the way I tensed was enough for him to read me. "I don't have time to teach you frickin words."

I consider arguing because if he's immortal, then he had nothing but time, but I felt there was a pitch coming.

"But, there's cheaper ways to do things...iffin you've lived long enough, and don't mind dying."

I was all ears.

Observe...and Terminate

I heard the strangest sound as we got into a series of hills. I'd say Chonk and I were in a remote area, but hell, everything seemed remote here. Not one city, town, or village for miles. Last structures I saw were that castle and Dal Matia's patchwork tower.

So color me surprised when I hear a bass guitar quietly being played off in the distance.  Chonk seemed dead set on heading that way, so my curiosity was to be sated at least. There were a lot of 'don't look' 'don't touch', and 'don't eat' warnings on the travels so far, this one was at least not warranting a 'don't listen'. 

As we crested a hill, I heard more to the guitar.  It was faint, but I heard a woman's voice. She was singing, and there was faint treble music.  It was a full fledged song, I would've bet money that it was one I knew too. Kelly Clarkson's 'Miss Independent'.  I was in college when that song came out, never really cared about American Idol, and I was dismayed to find out it was still on when I came back, but I digress.

The hill leveled off into a flat plain, with another small picturesque brook going through it. Cattails and tall weeds waved back and forth, catching up against me about to the waist. There were stickerbushes and those little hooked seed plants that the idea for Velcro came from.

And there was a little house made of wood up ahead. Complete with a deck, stairs, and a chimney.

I was pretty visible, and decided to play it straight and just be noticeable rather than sneak around. Seems like the folks in these parts were really, really, really magic inclined, and stealthier than I could ever be. To hunch down and let the weeds give me away, that just sounded like stupidity. Better I look foolish etc...

When I got close, I heard the song change to voices.  Radio commercials. This person had a radio that worked in hell Underland. I started to finally clear out of the meadow, when a figure opened up the door and stepped out, obviously looking right at me.

This is where I'd expect to find Rika again, because my life falls into patterns and shit.

I did not.

The man was older, dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt. He wore one of them big western hats, that helped tame the wild long grey and white hair that signified him as a senior. He also wore a Sam Elliott style mustache.  Hell, if I didn't know any better, I'd have assumed it was Sam Elliott.  He kept squinting at me, reached inside his door and drew a few feet of iron on me.

Yep, the cowboy had a shotgun. Imagine that.

I put up my hands. He didn't point it at me, just yet, but it was there, and I felt the sudden urge to be exceedingly respectful.

The talk on the radio started up again, I wasn't paying attention.  He casually mouthed a cigarette out of a pack while staring at me approach, and lit it one handed off of a match.

Its a pretty long trek to walk sixty yards towards someone toting iron on you, with your hands up. Just sayin.

I finally get close enough to talk to him, standing off of the porch still, hands still up.  The radio's pretty loud, so I open up to talk over it.  The music changes to some girlpop song about wanting her boy to fall in love or something.

I stood there, unmoving.

He did the same, just smoking, giving me the stink eye.

The girl sang out about him being her baby.

After about thirty seconds, I sort of motion discretely to the radio.  He doesn't move. I mean I'm comfortable enough in my asexuality I guess, but this was just awkward.

Finally, he moves over to turn off the radio, always keeping me in his sight. The man didn't wear boots, but a pair of beaten sneakers not too unlike mine. In retrospect I guess my gear never really wore away back when I was dead, I guess that was good.

He sits in a chair on the porch and looks at me. Calmly, he finishes the cigarette and rubs it out. I get the sense that he should speak first, so I finally close my mouth and stop letting the flies in, as they say.

"Two questions." He says finally, as he leans back in his chair, that weapon in his lap, a hand on it.

I start to talk, and he cuts me off with that air of presence and finality. "How the hell haven't I met you before?"

I blink.  That wasn't quite what I had expected, and respond with a blank "Uh....?"

He squints at me again, and so I continue, "I'm new here, is why?" The sour look he gives me tells me that's not the answer he wants. I elaborate, "Seriously, I'm new here. I came here looking for a killer, and well, things got very muddled, I got locked up for a while, and now I'm just..." I shrug weakly, "Trying to get home."

The man leans forward a little, finally having gotten something he's interested in. "How long?" I pause, and stutter, "I need clarification, how long I was here, how long I was gone, what?"

Suddenly, Chonk pipes up, "Well, so much for his debt of hospitality. That got out of the way early, hmmm."

I ignore him, and look to the old man. "How long were you captured?" I think on it, and finally gesture to my missing arm, "Long enough to heal from this? Three months maybe?" 

He grips the shotgun tighter, "Come on, don't lie to me."  He raises it straight up, the threat was palpable as was the contempt in his voice, "I can see you. Hell, you're glowing like a sun. There ain't no way you've been here for just a few months. You'd better start giving me some answers."

Insert the Dukes of Hazzard commercial break music here.

Living in a technocolor dreamworld

"Stop speaking in riddles."

"Stop breathing air."

We both answered at the same time, "No."

I sighed at Chonk. Chonk the Faeline had been nothing but cryptic answers since I met it. We were travelling still, the road stretched on forever to wherever it went. It was lush, green, verdant...I always wanted to call something verdant.  Not too far from home, except here, here the colors were more vibrant, the experiences were richer. The scent of clover fields or something else nice because I'm not sure I've ever smelled clover.

The point is, this was the nicest part of the entire 'Underland' I'd seen.  We saw large moving trees, wrapped together like a statue made of parts of wood, that walked between the trees, not moving a branch. Chonk advised me to steal fruit from them, and with my stomach rumbling in agreement, I did so.

I'm sure that's not going to bite me on the ass.

We both ate, we drank from streams of water.  It was the wild, but it was the best wild I could ever imagine. Something out of one of those Miyozaki films, the romanticizing of an overland trip.

And Chonk here was my festive, snarky sidekick.

I sat, and finished off the fruit that I have no idea what it was. It had a sweet and bitter taste to it. I found myself disappointed I had only grabbed three.  For a sense of gratitude, I planted the pits of the fruits near where I ate them. That'd come across less awkward if I had a trowel or shovel.  Instead I was just one-handed trying to pry my short sword into the ground, and dig up a small hole.

Still, Karma +1, am I right?

I pressed my luck and started to grill Chonk again. It was cleaning itself, those big tuffed ears twitched, as it sensed my attention. I considered if the ears were a hint as to the lynx or bobcat heritage.

"This guy we're going to see." I started.

It continued cleaning itself. (I'm using gender neutral because I don't want to have THAT conversation with a fae), then looked up, "Yes. To see, smell, hear, vrinch, all the senses."

I gave it a sour look, Vrinch?  Its playing me for fun again.  "He's human, and has been here for a while...so the thought is that he can help me out?"

I've already gone over this with him, but apparently cats are still too clever for their own good, even in the Underland. Chonk likes to omit things, so far none of them have been life-threatening, but I've had a few moments of discomfort, as flower pollen got me high, or some sort of water thing took offense at me drinking from a creek I had found.

He's fun at parties though.

That's an assumption, I don't go to parties much.

Chonk pulled itself up and let that tail sway, "He was human, last I checked. Long enough that I remember him."

I nodded, "But his name was deigned to be beneath notice of your attention?"

Chonk raised its head, accepting the flattery. Cats are still cats, it seems. "Mortals usually don't stay for long."

I nodded, "Well then. Lets get me home before I get dead."

Chonk rolled a throaty purr, as I got up and started walking. It continued, "Seems to me that the two options....are the same."

I freaking hate cats sometimes.