golden apples of the sun, silver apples of the moon

[pollyladon.livejournal.com]

Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables?

- Henry David Thoreau

Tuesday, February 2nd, early afternoon

A bright day it is, sun gleaming in a wintry sky. It's hard not to be optimistic on a day like today, especially when I set out in the morning on the road to town. I have always felt great comfort in travel - at least, travel I have done alone, for the travelling to Excolo was exhausting and depressing. But when I have only my feet or my horse to worry about, my own agenda to pursue, then I am as content as can be. I have felt some guilt in the past over the pleasure I feel in being on my own on the road - it seems a selfish sort of thing - but I console myself that I do my work for my community. Once for my town, now for my new Temple.

It is a good town, this Excolo. I like it well, the two clean busy main streets and the tidy houses. There are some derelict spots, and a rather sad looking carnival (and there might be a good place to look for new members of our family! I have seen that many of the folk look tired and thin), but there is no filth, no polluted water, no sign of widespread disease or poverty. The people in general are slimmer than in Ladon, and it surprises me when it's such an apparently prosperous place, but they do not appear sick with it. And there are two churches - both sites of misguided follies, of course, but it gives me hope for the open mindedness of the population.

I take a walk through the town again, memorising the geography. I'm good at this; I now have a map in my mind of the location of every store and of the layout of the streets. I buy a cup of coffee at the cafe - such a luxury, and yet it seems an everyday thing here - and then I walk to the park. It isn't warm, but I like sitting in the sun when I can, and so I find a bench and tilt my head back and smile.

[OPEN]

golden apples of the sun, silver apples of the moon

[pollyladon.livejournal.com]

Who has not seen in imagination, when looking into the sunset sky, the gardens of the Hesperides, and the foundation of all those fables?

- Henry David Thoreau

Tuesday, February 2nd, early afternoon

A bright day it is, sun gleaming in a wintry sky. It's hard not to be optimistic on a day like today, especially when I set out in the morning on the road to town. I have always felt great comfort in travel - at least, travel I have done alone, for the travelling to Excolo was exhausting and depressing. But when I have only my feet or my horse to worry about, my own agenda to pursue, then I am as content as can be. I have felt some guilt in the past over the pleasure I feel in being on my own on the road - it seems a selfish sort of thing - but I console myself that I do my work for my community. Once for my town, now for my new Temple.

It is a good town, this Excolo. I like it well, the two clean busy main streets and the tidy houses. There are some derelict spots, and a rather sad looking carnival (and there might be a good place to look for new members of our family! I have seen that many of the folk look tired and thin), but there is no filth, no polluted water, no sign of widespread disease or poverty. The people in general are slimmer than in Ladon, and it surprises me when it's such an apparently prosperous place, but they do not appear sick with it. And there are two churches - both sites of misguided follies, of course, but it gives me hope for the open mindedness of the population.

I take a walk through the town again, memorising the geography. I'm good at this; I now have a map in my mind of the location of every store and of the layout of the streets. I buy a cup of coffee at the cafe - such a luxury, and yet it seems an everyday thing here - and then I walk to the park. It isn't warm, but I like sitting in the sun when I can, and so I find a bench and tilt my head back and smile.

[OPEN]

Once I rose above the noise and confusion/Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

[Late morning of Tuesday, February 2 (day 247)]
[Out and about]

It's a clear day, something that makes you feel like you could reach up and rap on the sky with your knuckles, and you'd feel something as smooth as fresh paint and as cool as the cold side of the pillow on a hot summer night. I've been thinking about the music box, trying to think about it, but it's hard--it's a machine like all the others, it's the heart of what a machine is, but it's so much more that its not like the others, I can't quite keep it all in my head at once. I've actually had to sit down and scribble things out, which is kind of weird, but it helps.

...I've been thinking about talking to Kent, a little. I still can't figure out exactly what I'd ask not to do, for the favour, and I wish he could hear what the heterodyne showed me. There's a kind of trembling potential there, the shiver that goes with an indrawn breath, and it makes me giddy.

Oh. Oh, if I can make you, honey... Well, you'll be all your own way and reason to touch the sky, won't you?

[Closed]

Once I rose above the noise and confusion/Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion

[tereixa-zann.livejournal.com]

[Late morning of Tuesday, February 2 (day 247)]
[Out and about]

It's a clear day, something that makes you feel like you could reach up and rap on the sky with your knuckles, and you'd feel something as smooth as fresh paint and as cool as the cold side of the pillow on a hot summer night. I've been thinking about the music box, trying to think about it, but it's hard--it's a machine like all the others, it's the heart of what a machine is, but it's so much more that its not like the others, I can't quite keep it all in my head at once. I've actually had to sit down and scribble things out, which is kind of weird, but it helps.

...I've been thinking about talking to Kent, a little. I still can't figure out exactly what I'd ask not to do, for the favour, and I wish he could hear what the heterodyne showed me. There's a kind of trembling potential there, the shiver that goes with an indrawn breath, and it makes me giddy.

Oh. Oh, if I can make you, honey... Well, you'll be all your own way and reason to touch the sky, won't you?

[Closed]

Disobedience, noun: "The silver lining to the cloud of servitude." --- Ambrose Bierce

[mistresswanda.livejournal.com]

Tuesday, February 2nd. 
Late afternoon.

I have to start small.  Nothing grand, nothing that will attract attention.  Yet, at any rate.

"It is not your job to know what I intend."

Fine.  Then it is not my fault if he does not care for the way I will raise our daughter.  If I do not know, then how could I possibly know what will be counter-productive to his wishes?  Really...

Of course, the first and most important thing I can give her is love.  She knows I love her.  Her father may be proud, and eager; and perhaps I hold out the impossible hope that if he were to love anything in this world, it would be her...
but it is a slim hope.  I will keep it secret and close to my heart, but I will not wait on it either.   So I will love her, love her enough for both of us.  I will love her and teach her to love.    

Next, knowing that she can hear me, that she responds to our voices, I started singing.  Anything and everything. 
She likes bouncy showtunes the best, I have come to discover over the last few days.  Showtunes during the day and slow, smoky jazz tunes before I go to sleep.  If she's calm, I can almost get a full night in. 

So I can give her music and the comfort of her mother's voice... and more importantly, information.  As Kent said, we have no idea what she understands, but it can't hurt to start now.   With each customer today, I told her something nice or funny about them after they left or when I was alone in the kitchen as I kept a image of them in my mind.  Perhaps it was just my imagination, but she seemed attentive to the information...

So with that in mind, I threw a soft wrap over one of the dresses that "appeared" in my closet and went to the library.  At first I didn't think Lydia was minded to help me, but when I quietly whispered what I wanted the books for, they stopped falling on my head and landed on the tables instead.

Smiling, arms full of books on faerie tales, world history, baby names and a large picture book on beautiful places all over the world, I head over to the cafe for a bite to eat.  Over the next couple of days, we shall read them aloud together, her and I.  I shall start teaching her now.  Once these are done, I shall go and get more.  And more after that, and more.... And I shall continue to tell her about the people in town.  And to sing to her.  And to love her.

They are small things, perhaps.

But it is a start.

(closed)

Disobedience, noun: "The silver lining to the cloud of servitude." --- Ambrose Bierce

[mistresswanda.livejournal.com]

Tuesday, February 2nd. 
Late afternoon.

I have to start small.  Nothing grand, nothing that will attract attention.  Yet, at any rate.

"It is not your job to know what I intend."

Fine.  Then it is not my fault if he does not care for the way I will raise our daughter.  If I do not know, then how could I possibly know what will be counter-productive to his wishes?  Really...

Of course, the first and most important thing I can give her is love.  She knows I love her.  Her father may be proud, and eager; and perhaps I hold out the impossible hope that if he were to love anything in this world, it would be her...
but it is a slim hope.  I will keep it secret and close to my heart, but I will not wait on it either.   So I will love her, love her enough for both of us.  I will love her and teach her to love.    

Next, knowing that she can hear me, that she responds to our voices, I started singing.  Anything and everything. 
She likes bouncy showtunes the best, I have come to discover over the last few days.  Showtunes during the day and slow, smoky jazz tunes before I go to sleep.  If she's calm, I can almost get a full night in. 

So I can give her music and the comfort of her mother's voice... and more importantly, information.  As Kent said, we have no idea what she understands, but it can't hurt to start now.   With each customer today, I told her something nice or funny about them after they left or when I was alone in the kitchen as I kept a image of them in my mind.  Perhaps it was just my imagination, but she seemed attentive to the information...

So with that in mind, I threw a soft wrap over one of the dresses that "appeared" in my closet and went to the library.  At first I didn't think Lydia was minded to help me, but when I quietly whispered what I wanted the books for, they stopped falling on my head and landed on the tables instead.

Smiling, arms full of books on faerie tales, world history, baby names and a large picture book on beautiful places all over the world, I head over to the cafe for a bite to eat.  Over the next couple of days, we shall read them aloud together, her and I.  I shall start teaching her now.  Once these are done, I shall go and get more.  And more after that, and more.... And I shall continue to tell her about the people in town.  And to sing to her.  And to love her.

They are small things, perhaps.

But it is a start.

(closed)

... there is no sin but innocence.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

Childhood: The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

- Ambrose Bierce

Tuesday afternoon, the carnival

As it turned out I was glad to have seen Wanda. The Kent body can please her easily enough, and although now I have conquered her the game has gone out of it, a span of a few hours of copulating and making conversation are insignificant in my greater schemes. I left her sated and no longer furious with me, which is well. She needs to keep content enough to bear my child, and I would rather she lived afterward, for I have no interest in raising her baby. There are cults enough that would be glad of the honour, but my worshippers do tend toward the volatile. And besides, mother knows best, humans are so insistent on that. Better that Wanda stay healthy in body and well enough in mind to look after our daughter, and once she is raised enough -

I smile as I slip into the little girl body with which I spoke to Gaueko. Then, indeed, we shall see.

Although my fury with Tezcatlipoca has not abated, I have now put it deep inside me. There is no risk of holocaust, now, if I see him, and I find myself in the mood for mischief. Cruelty to humans is always a pleasure, and after -

Now I find I crave it particularly. Nothing of blood or bone, no. I want something more delicate than that. And so I put on this little doll body, such a perfect child. I even give it a heart that beats, so that if someone should press this child body to them they will hear its comforting thump. But the body I keep as a shell. I have no desire for the putrescence of shitting sweating Man to be about me. This heart might as well be clockwork, these limbs porcelain, for all the feeling they have for me. And yet to the touch its skin is as soft as any child's and as warm.

If a job is not well done, better not to do it at all. I have a pleasure in my own perfection.

I dress this body in a red coat and striped dress. Her long socks have rolled down enough to show a scab on one knee. I walk this body across to the carnival, where it looks thoughtfully at the rides, hands in its pockets, a small dab of chocolate at the corner of its mouth.

I am sure it will make new friends.

[closed]

... there is no sin but innocence.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

Childhood: The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

- Ambrose Bierce

Tuesday afternoon, the carnival

As it turned out I was glad to have seen Wanda. The Kent body can please her easily enough, and although now I have conquered her the game has gone out of it, a span of a few hours of copulating and making conversation are insignificant in my greater schemes. I left her sated and no longer furious with me, which is well. She needs to keep content enough to bear my child, and I would rather she lived afterward, for I have no interest in raising her baby. There are cults enough that would be glad of the honour, but my worshippers do tend toward the volatile. And besides, mother knows best, humans are so insistent on that. Better that Wanda stay healthy in body and well enough in mind to look after our daughter, and once she is raised enough -

I smile as I slip into the little girl body with which I spoke to Gaueko. Then, indeed, we shall see.

Although my fury with Tezcatlipoca has not abated, I have now put it deep inside me. There is no risk of holocaust, now, if I see him, and I find myself in the mood for mischief. Cruelty to humans is always a pleasure, and after -

Now I find I crave it particularly. Nothing of blood or bone, no. I want something more delicate than that. And so I put on this little doll body, such a perfect child. I even give it a heart that beats, so that if someone should press this child body to them they will hear its comforting thump. But the body I keep as a shell. I have no desire for the putrescence of shitting sweating Man to be about me. This heart might as well be clockwork, these limbs porcelain, for all the feeling they have for me. And yet to the touch its skin is as soft as any child's and as warm.

If a job is not well done, better not to do it at all. I have a pleasure in my own perfection.

I dress this body in a red coat and striped dress. Her long socks have rolled down enough to show a scab on one knee. I walk this body across to the carnival, where it looks thoughtfully at the rides, hands in its pockets, a small dab of chocolate at the corner of its mouth.

I am sure it will make new friends.

[closed]