Who You Were
Jul. 8th, 2012 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
archiveofarethusa"I think I wouldn't mind dying," Jemesk said, freshly nine, "as long as I died far and away from here."
The shock was plain on Clyde's face when he said it, and a vicious thrill stole over Jem at the sight of it. Good, he thought. It was time someone else realized that children were capable of hate, too. Clyde was fourteen, newly apprenticed to Dr. Slate and stupid in the way all of the older children were. They all wanted and tried desperately to forget that it was only a handful of years at best that separated them from the helplessness of the younger ones, as if training made them any less a prisoner than the rest of them. Jemesk would never forget. He would carve the knowledge into his arm if he had to; his parents had willingly given him to this, and he would not give anyone the chance to do it again.
-
Time had made Jemesk clever, and so he learned to be like the earth and keep all his fire and fury below the surface. He wore his awkward, grateful boy's mask as gracefully as he could and watched and learned. He could never escape. New Kaddar was a rat maze and the cheese was trapped, but Jemesk was in the unique position of not being a rat. All the trouble had began in his head, he could see that now. Metaphors were a tricky narrow grave, and life did not abide by their arbitrary limitations. It was malleable. Changeable. One had to be able to move with it, or they'd drown. Jemesk would be malleable, too. He could not let himself die while the alternative yet held so much unknown potential.
-
Jemesk had known Annie Tark for most of his life, and he thought that if he were to marry, it would be to a woman like her. Annie was the strike of a whip, dangerous and sharp and not to be ignored or denied. Annie understood him, raged as he raged and knew precisely how to bridle that rage into something controlled and effective. Dawn was so unlike Annie Tark as to be what a mirror might reflect of her shadow. She was a Billingslea of Poyning Street, sole daughter of Oswain and Myla Billingslea, and as such owned whatever she wished before it occured to her to wish for it. She was seldom serious even when she spoke of solemn matters, always a smirk close to her lips, and her hair and eyes were as gallows dark as her humor. Dawn was a very different sort of undeniable and dangerous and sharp, and as Jemesk awaited her at the altar he thought and thought but could not say when his ill-conceived attraction had bled into love. Well, so let him be kept. He chose this of his own will.
-
Jemesk supposed the Faindown was beautiful at night. It shone black as obsidian in the moonlight, the fairy lights of wandering souls gathered upon its surface to the song of the river shepherds. Some would pass along to whatever went after, some would be devoured by their own shepherd. Most, like him, would remain to be lost and wandering another night. The mists smelled of clove tonight, clove and ruin and something terrible burning in between. The shadows had eyes, and they were an impossible neon blue. They, too, might have been considered beautiful. Jemesk smiled, a twisted, bitter thing.
"Hello, old friend," he said. They both knew each other for no friend, but it was perhaps the only word available to them that fit.
-
His heart is a klaxon in his chest tonight. There is blood on his hands, dark and clinging; not his, but the wound it bleeds from may as well be his own. The shadows embrace the strange machinery around him as if they had been welded to it. They did not move, but Jemesk knew better. He had seen them. He would not be able to stop seeing them. Clyde came and went, he thought. Seconds, minutes, years later, the irons came and did not leave.
The brain bleach was an almost, but not entirely, welcome punishment.
-
The man called Jemesk Graymarch stood considering the Faindown, his tea cooling in his hands.
Obsidian black and glittering in the moonlight, the Faindown was a thing of incredible beauty. Jemesk, who was poor, wasn't like to find a greater treasure. He thought he might not even if he were the wealthiest man in Kaddarsi, but it wasn't beauty that brought him back to its stony shores each night.
This is where I wait, he thinks, almost says, and does not know why he should wait at all. He wonders about the man who inhabited his body before him sometimes. His memories are gone, but then there are thoughts like these, emotions and words and sometimes faces which are so strong in him as to be muscle memory inextinguishable by cuts and burns. Jemesk enjoys life and who he is becoming, but these indistinct shapes upon his tongue fascinate him. He would have liked to have met himself. So he comes upon the Faindown these nights and waits for a stranger who may never come.
The shock was plain on Clyde's face when he said it, and a vicious thrill stole over Jem at the sight of it. Good, he thought. It was time someone else realized that children were capable of hate, too. Clyde was fourteen, newly apprenticed to Dr. Slate and stupid in the way all of the older children were. They all wanted and tried desperately to forget that it was only a handful of years at best that separated them from the helplessness of the younger ones, as if training made them any less a prisoner than the rest of them. Jemesk would never forget. He would carve the knowledge into his arm if he had to; his parents had willingly given him to this, and he would not give anyone the chance to do it again.
-
Time had made Jemesk clever, and so he learned to be like the earth and keep all his fire and fury below the surface. He wore his awkward, grateful boy's mask as gracefully as he could and watched and learned. He could never escape. New Kaddar was a rat maze and the cheese was trapped, but Jemesk was in the unique position of not being a rat. All the trouble had began in his head, he could see that now. Metaphors were a tricky narrow grave, and life did not abide by their arbitrary limitations. It was malleable. Changeable. One had to be able to move with it, or they'd drown. Jemesk would be malleable, too. He could not let himself die while the alternative yet held so much unknown potential.
-
Jemesk had known Annie Tark for most of his life, and he thought that if he were to marry, it would be to a woman like her. Annie was the strike of a whip, dangerous and sharp and not to be ignored or denied. Annie understood him, raged as he raged and knew precisely how to bridle that rage into something controlled and effective. Dawn was so unlike Annie Tark as to be what a mirror might reflect of her shadow. She was a Billingslea of Poyning Street, sole daughter of Oswain and Myla Billingslea, and as such owned whatever she wished before it occured to her to wish for it. She was seldom serious even when she spoke of solemn matters, always a smirk close to her lips, and her hair and eyes were as gallows dark as her humor. Dawn was a very different sort of undeniable and dangerous and sharp, and as Jemesk awaited her at the altar he thought and thought but could not say when his ill-conceived attraction had bled into love. Well, so let him be kept. He chose this of his own will.
-
Jemesk supposed the Faindown was beautiful at night. It shone black as obsidian in the moonlight, the fairy lights of wandering souls gathered upon its surface to the song of the river shepherds. Some would pass along to whatever went after, some would be devoured by their own shepherd. Most, like him, would remain to be lost and wandering another night. The mists smelled of clove tonight, clove and ruin and something terrible burning in between. The shadows had eyes, and they were an impossible neon blue. They, too, might have been considered beautiful. Jemesk smiled, a twisted, bitter thing.
"Hello, old friend," he said. They both knew each other for no friend, but it was perhaps the only word available to them that fit.
-
His heart is a klaxon in his chest tonight. There is blood on his hands, dark and clinging; not his, but the wound it bleeds from may as well be his own. The shadows embrace the strange machinery around him as if they had been welded to it. They did not move, but Jemesk knew better. He had seen them. He would not be able to stop seeing them. Clyde came and went, he thought. Seconds, minutes, years later, the irons came and did not leave.
The brain bleach was an almost, but not entirely, welcome punishment.
-
The man called Jemesk Graymarch stood considering the Faindown, his tea cooling in his hands.
Obsidian black and glittering in the moonlight, the Faindown was a thing of incredible beauty. Jemesk, who was poor, wasn't like to find a greater treasure. He thought he might not even if he were the wealthiest man in Kaddarsi, but it wasn't beauty that brought him back to its stony shores each night.
This is where I wait, he thinks, almost says, and does not know why he should wait at all. He wonders about the man who inhabited his body before him sometimes. His memories are gone, but then there are thoughts like these, emotions and words and sometimes faces which are so strong in him as to be muscle memory inextinguishable by cuts and burns. Jemesk enjoys life and who he is becoming, but these indistinct shapes upon his tongue fascinate him. He would have liked to have met himself. So he comes upon the Faindown these nights and waits for a stranger who may never come.