Need to Go Forward, Need to Go Back

Hey y’all,

I don’t use trigger warnings very often, but I’ve had some folks get upset or worried about me when they read this scene written in slightly different forms in various novels in the series. So I’m using one. Please don’t judge me. It’s a deeply personal thing, and while this is a work of art and art is, in my opinion, meant to be provocative on some level, it is also entertainment. And I have no wish to do harm, including accidental or incidental harm, in the telling of what is for me a complex and emotionally tumultuous story while training to entertain you. So please, take good care of yourself, and skip this one if you need to.

Xoxo,

T

/mɑːrz/ c. 1 /noʊˈvɛmbər/ 1023 /ˈænoʊ ˈdɒmɪnaɪ/

I begin with the breath. It is there, and I put my attention upon it. The mind has other matters it wishes to attend to, so I gently reprimand it and redirect it to the breath; to the breath, then to the body.

I scan the body. I can see clearly the aches and pains, the decrepitudes that are setting in. I breathing into and around these areas—by which I mean, I visualize the breath weaving around, binding, and suffusing these points of pain, and a sense of ease begins to occur.

Then I return to the breath itself.

Here I stay, getting the mind, the body, the breath, and the voice into alignment, into a snug fit.

I begin to experience absorption, and then concentration.

My concentration is good now, so I do the work before me.

With my mind, I reach out from where I am seated on /ˈtɛrə sɪˈmɪriə/ to the vast space between here and now to the there and then.

When I feel contact with the there and then, I look for the horizon. By look I mean, I let my mind see it, see the horizon of pure light.

Seeing it, I eject my consciousness and travel there in an instant.

I glide along the horizon on a silver cord, moving fast as light, with no effort. The cord it runs through my crown, my spine, and out of my tailbone. The movement is effortless and vibrates very gently, like a very round, soft hum.

My skin changes, moving from bluish to peachish, and my bone density shifts. My ears, nose, and throat swell and then collapse, like a tiny wave. And my hands push out another finger, as do my feet another toe.

I arrive on the surface of there and then. The skies are blue, not red. The ground is green and brown, not orange and gray. I like seeing it. I am beginning to feel it, though as through a veil.

The sky is occluded, then by a structure—a ceiling—and the ground is covered up by a floor.

I look and see there /sɪˈmɪriən/—a statue of them, anyway.

The place is a temple, I see, and there is much imagery here that is linked to my home.

I read the sunscript around the dias, and it reads:  /ˈsoʊmə/ d. 11 /noʊˈvɛmbər/ 2023 /ˈænoʊ ˈdɒmɪnaɪ/.

I arch an eye. A thousand years, more or less.

Then, I see the sunscript change. It now reads:  /ˈsoʊmə/ d. 9 / ɒkˈtoʊbər / 2017 /ˈænoʊ ˈdɒmɪnaɪ/.

Images shimmer into view, and I see the scene:

There’s a midnight wedding goin’ on.

Sign reads: Henna Ohm wit Penguin Docks.

I glare at it, like that’ll help.

Foundry asks, “What’s wrong?”

“Nuthin’,” I say. “Gotta make a quick stop.”

“Should I come with?”

“It might get ugly.”

“Ugly I can handle.”

“Up to you then.”

So Foundry stays close and we walk in the Martian Temple.

There’s lines of fokel, and I see Penguin’s mom right away. Then Henna’s mom, her dad.

Penguin’s up there in a suit, lookin’ washed as he can but still the dirty ratbastard he is.

Henna is beautiful in her gown, an absolute vision of rockin’ perfection.

There’s the elements of blood and blade, the war dance, the declaration of battle and call to arms. Then the open challenge, which is when I speak, say, “I.”

The priest smiles, bloody delight in his eyes. “And your name.”

“Teresa Anderson.”

Penguin and Henna both look at me, as do their parents. I ignore them all, keep my eyes on the priest.

“By the divine right, you claim single combat.”

“I do.”

Foundry leans in, “Are you sure about this?”

“Fuckin’ sure,” I say and it echoes the chamber.

Penguin gives me a what the fuck look, then picks up the ceremonial knife.

I snap my wrist for mah hisser to emerge. But it doesn’t.

“Fuck,” I say softly. “Right. Nonviolence and all that.”

Penguin gives a screech and runs, knife over head down the aisle, mad dashin’ toward me like the numbnuts he is.

I smile, take a step right as he reaches me, hand over his, turn his wrist and the knife to his face and he folds down on the ground in an uneasy coil.

“Wah, Tee, wah?” he goes. “You ain been in love for years now.”

I sneer and push the blade closer to his nose.

He curls some more, but I know his shoulder will snap soon if I keep goin’.

Then Henna says, “Teresa.”

I stop, look at her.

“Thank you for coming.”

The fight goes out of me, like a rush of water.

I look down at Penguin, and snatch the knife with my other hand, turn him loose and walk up to Henna, present it to her in the traditional way.

“Mah gift to you,” I say. “Sorry I wasn’t a better partner.”

“It wasn’t that,” she said. “It was me. Always me.”

I shook my head. “That’s not all of it. But we’ll let it be, today.”

Henna takes the knife, plunges it in the bed of earth by the altar.

Penguin is by my side, sniffs, eyes like daggers, goes, “Yeah. Thanks for stoppin’ by, Tee.”

I glare at him, then walk down the aisle, meet Foundry by the door, give the finger over my shoulder as we cross the threshold back to the street.

It is strange to see myself in this way, in this time.

But the interaction with Henna causes a memory to open within her mind.

I am vigilant, so I see it opening, and dive through it.

The tunnel of her mind is well-swept but relatively spare. I am unsure if this is all there is to it, or if there is more beneath the surface. It is only a potential distraction, though, so I disregard my curiosity—which is mild—and flow through her mind tunnel from the there and then of the Temple during her wedding to the where and when of her confession to Dorian.

I step out of the mind tunnel and into the room.

On the desk, I see a clock, that has the date:  4 Jul 3081.

I translate that to c. 24 /dʒun/ 1992 /ˈænoʊ ˈdɒmɪnaɪ/—which is correct. I am in the right place at the right time.

I watch Henna make her confession to Dorian, telling him that which he already knew, which he had already see through psychic channels. And I watch it break him in two. His consciousness is vulnerable then and wishes to leave the body. I know this because I can see it.

Literal trigger warning for self-harm.

Please stop reading here if you are not in a safe mental space to continue.

Henna leaves, and Dorian gets the pistol.

There is another moment that needs to happen between now and the shot. Someone is not here. Not yet.

I sit on the bed and watch, wait.

Dorian cries, gun in hand, vodka bottle emptying, his consciousness floating out of his body—all except for the head.

I observe in myself a desire to comfort him and to console him, to hold him close and ransom him away from all of this, carry him back to my home a thousand years away. But this is only another distraction. He is safe. I know the outcome of this scene. I know where and how he is. Yet there is some part of me that cannot but imagine ways I could improve upon his position. The pull is strong.

My concentration straining from the pull, another factor emerges—the arrival of the missing.

There they stand, tall and terrible, in ancient forest regalia. The hood hides the face except for the chin, which has few gray whiskers.

I do not think they see me. I do not think they realize I am here. Their greed and lust has blinded them to my presence. So I make no move. The window is very precise, and there is no margin for error. Should I fail, Dorian will be destroyed, and I will be back on my planet, a thousand years ago, doomed to die along with everyone else.

Dorian seems calmer.

I see it is the influence of the hooded presence, who is whispering lies to him.

Dorian nods in response to the lies, and puts the pistol into his mouth.

He winces as he tries to pull the trigger, but finds he cannot.

The hooded figure moves into predatory position then, and puts their hand around his.

As the impulse arises in them to squeeze his hand which will squeezer the trigger, I move.

With an easy motion, I gently grab his consciousness and pull it from his head. I climb into his body and toss the gun away.

“Damn you, Teresa,” they say from under the hood.

I smile at them from Dorian’s eyes. “You can’t have ‘im. Not now, not ever.”

They frown and rise, move away from me. They catch Dorian’s consciousness by the silver-blue toe and say, “Very well. We shall play this out once more,” and then they fold sideways—along with Dorian’s consciousness—and disappear.

I wipe his nose—now my nose—and adjust to being back in this body. I am a woman, and his body is male, so I am transgender here. That is not a thing that is well-known in this time and place, and so I allow myself to forget it until the time is right.

I cannot recall what I was thinking about. I do recall I need to keep going back—all the way back to my birth.

So I do that—at least I think I do? And then I am back here again, you know—eventually. With you.

Play procedures

• You now have access to all the different time periods and locales described in this chapter. You won’t be able to travel between them until you have unlocked the secret of time & space, which requires the secret of time travel and the secret of deep absorption; but, you may count this chapter three times toward learning it or either of the requisite secrets in any combination you like.
• If you know the song that was playing in this scene, you may add it to your song grimoire. If you don’t you may select an alternate one that has special meaning for you and is appropriate and sensitive to what is happening.
• Should you dislike or disapprove of trigger warnings, you may collect this one and save it for later. You will have an opportunity to turn them in for special items and unique actions later on.