Old Topics
Once a bastard...
I find some delicious irony that such an ugly topic sparks such beautiful memories.
Ah, Christobel. With her sun-ray hair and romantic disposition. Her ruby lips, her fickle heart. Her lingering sighs, her obvious glances. Yes, I was as infatuated as it's possible for a man without a heart to be.
She had suitors, of course. Dear Robert, foppish Robert. All heart and very little of anything else. It's very little wonder that her eyes caught other far bright attentions. Light shining on darkness is all very well and good but light together, that's when true beauty and passion arises.
I encouraged her affections, enticing her with silk roses and Carnival trickery, tempted her betrayal. I made no secret of it then and there's no desire to now. At first it was her doll face that made me take a second, and indeed a third and fourth, glance but time can play havoc with the things we wish to keep purely physical. Her bright manner, her fierceness coupled with a dreamy impressionability. Such combinations. She was more than willing to be swayed and I was more than able to give a nudge or two in my direction.
Such a beautiful doll.
Things may have not turned so sour had she been an only child. If secrets had been better concealed from those trying to find them. I didn't feed the players lines but merely set the stage.
"All you ever think of is yourself," the younger and overshadowed sister had cried. "You're so used to seeing your own face in the sun, the moon -on every single star- that you never once wonder why it's on Tibby, for example. You just think everyone ought to look the way you look and be the way you are, and if they don't it's their fault. You don't recognise me! No wonder! You don't recognise yourself."
I smiled, nodded, urged her along as all the family were, as Christobel was, told of that which had been laying dormant in the air for years now.
Tremendous! You're all tremendous. Encore.
"I'm not going to bear it," my mineral-girl cried violently. "Why the hell should I? I'll hate everyone if I want to."
Betrayal. What a necessary evil.
Childhood Secrets
When we were younger, Hadfield killed a cat. A small, thin, grey mewling creation. It looked up at me with black saucer eyes and gave a strained little cry. I felt quite sorry for it. It had wandered into our garden, where from I have no idea as neighbours were scarce and I wasn't away of any ferals or strays, looking for scraps of a meal or perhaps the tender hand of a loving child.
Unfortunately, this poor creature found the Carnivals.
I did consider taking the ball of fur and bones inside and feeding it the last remnants of the night before's chicken. Laying out a dish of milk and stroking it contentedly as the grainy pink tongue lapped at the liquid. Balls of string, wind-up mice, a sparkling collar, that kind of thing. The gentle encouragement from Felix tipping the scales.
No sooner had I decided to give in Felix's whims, Haddy had scooped up this small and fragile life. He held it in his hands, weighing it up, debating whether or not to hand it to one of us or keep it for himself [Felix was cowering by this time, as you can well imagine].
I didn't stop him. I watched him with a morbid curiousity. Just what was my Haddy capable of?
It was when I heard that sound like stepping on dry twigs that I knew what he, and indeed people, could do.
That cusp between midnight and morning. The source of all possibility and magick. Or so it's always been claimed. I'm not one to argue with that. I enjoy doing all those traditonal things; watching the stars and renaming constellations, gazing up at the face of the moon and feeling anything lunar is far too feminine to have a man in it, listening to the creatures chirping and snuffling in their confidence that no one can see. As everyone says, I adore the mystery that hangs there. It's that time of confusion, the subtle play on the human mind. It's morning and yet the sun hasn't risen. It isn't night but the moonlight still whispers down. The time of tricks and indeed tricksters.
I used to be fond of lazy afternoons. The kind where you can lay in the grass, stare up at the clouds and contemplate everything that could be and has been and never was. Time. There feels like there's an endless amount of time. The sunlight feels warm and pregnant with potential, the breeze tickles and calms, the flowers bloom and tilt their heads towards the light. Times like these can seem an age ago.
Time. An idea of moment that never really was and gone forever.
What do I look for in a romantic partner?
Assuming of course that romance is involved in the partnership? I can't claim to be a great romantic, nor have I ever been. Though for all intents and purposes, I'll humor the question.
I prefer petite women. I'm partial to blondes. There isn't one eye colour I favour over another, only what those eyes express. A heart shaped face. A small, full mouth. Feminine dress is alluring, a catchy turn of phrase holds interest. A desire to dream of the impossible, the improbable and the purely fantastical. Curiousity. A thirst for something more than is being offered by the world. Imagination. Ah, imagination. Someone with ideas. Though these are all relatively trivial things.
There's only one thing I really long for in someone else. Exhaustion. Illogical, I know, but the thing I want most is someone that can keep up with me. It's not an easy task. I'm difficult, at best. At worst... I'm sure you'll discover if you go to the right sources.
Someone with a degree of understanding for others. One that's willing to settle, I suppose. All men are limited, and some moreso than others.
The colour of death isn't black, it's blue. There are times when the thoughts creep up on him. Moreso now he's alone. Scenes replay over in his mind. Only he's not sure whether they happened the way the players act them out. The trappings of memory. The falling down of being a man divided. There may have been subtleties in the actions of others he may have missed, words interpreted differently. Their collective memory was a strange thing indeed.
A finger traced the silvery scar along his hairline. Oh, what a memory that was. The glory days cruelly ripped away in one fatal blow. Suriel, the executioner of their childhood kingdom come to collect one last soul.
Their garden was a sanctuary no longer. In these last few years, the siblings had grown apart. Sometimes it saddened him. He had always thought that Minerva would have been the one to stand by him. She had grown resentful of the things their father had afforded him and denied her. Perhaps she was even a little scared. The thought made his lips curve still. If only they could have stayed the Goddess of Wisdom and the Boy Enchanters for always.
"Teddy..."
He turned at the voice, met weary eyes with his own. His poor, poor father and his red rimmed eyes. There was no glimmer of sympathy for the hardships in the older man's life (not even Felix was willing to grant him that now). In his younger years he would have been afraid. The hard tone would have sent the hairs on his arms standing, the focused glare tying knots in his stomach. Ah, not now. Never now. And not for a long time, dear Edward. The greatest part of it all was knowing that his father knew that. The tormented had become the tormenter. Surpassed all the tricks and trials that could be thrown at him.
"Yes, father?"
"There need to be words, Teddy."
Yet that was were the man stopped. He could recall the feeling of curious surprise, of eyebrows knitting together. This should have been the part in Act I where the man lectured him mercilessly about his most recent activities, whatever they may have been, and tried to make him swear to never behave in such a manner again. Swiftly followed by Act II: The Ever Familiar Row. Act III: Misdemeanours Continued. Circle, repeat, carry on.
"Shouldn't you be speaking?"
"What to say, Teddy. What to say..."
The lilt in his father's voice made his neck involuntarily prickle. Body tensed and braced instinctively (good old Haddy). He doubted they would come to blows. They rarely came to blows now. Not as he grew and Edward started his inevitable decline into frailty.
He had no time for this, the ramblings of an aging fool. If this was his idea of a last attempt at discipline and control... He had to laugh. Pathethic codger. He could hardly believe he had wasted time on being afraid of this lonely old man crippled by his own fear and loss.
He turned his back. Something was said. Despite all the hours spent, he still could not decipher those last mutterings. Perhaps they had only been noises, heavy breathing.
Pain. Sharp as an acid burn, clear as glass. A sickening crack. It would be later he realised that sound was of his skull fracturing. An odd sensation. Something running down his face, into his eyes. Clouding them. Hard to see. Hard ground, hard to see. Sound of the thump, the ache of the impact. Duller than it should have been. Warm wetness under his head. Matting hair, matting grass. Tacky. Body won't move. No fight left. No tunnels, no white lights, no everlasting blackness or comforting tranquility. A sort of blue. Hazy. He couldn't fathom that part, even now.
Then, for the longest time, there was nothing.
He had drawn the spade without even realising it. Conjured himself a yellow pencil and traced the outline without even thinking of it. He wasn't sure how long he spent staring at it, as though it held some last piece of an elusive puzzle.
Three Reduced
"Where have you been?"
He perched on one of the rocks, two fingers and a thumb forming a loose shape of a gun which rested at his temple. His gaze stared out to sea. The darker haired man stood a distance behind him. Safe distance, Ovid supposed. Though perhaps his brother could beat him if it cames to blows. Unlikely but all things were a possibility.
"You know where I've been," came the soft answer.
"Yes. But I want to hear you say it. I want you to admit your betrayal." His own voice came through gritted teeth, head never turning back to meet eyes. Watching the waves that seemed to grow more turbulent as they did.
"Betrayals, burdens, it all comes back to you, doesn't it?"
Felix's voice ended there but he continued to speak volumes. He may not have been able to say the words aloud yet his thoughts rang out clear as a bell.
Can't handle it when it's not you having the influence over others. When it's others having influence over you.
Rage. Cold, white shards of rage. The assumptions! Too still riddled with cowardice to share his opinions and still forming them regardless! That one notion, that one particular notion that was a kernel within Felix. That dangerous seed that had started to bud and threatened blooming. She was giving him too much power. Fingers clenched into a fist he might yet use.
They were growing apart and yet closer at the same time. Such a disconcerting feeling. To have your sphere of influence, the very core of your being and what defined you starting to be taken away and mould into something else. Someone that risked becoming unrecognisable. Perhaps they would all become one again. Perhaps they would cease to exist entirely. Trickery beyond even the Carnival Magician. The not knowing. The little, annoying cut that would heal if only it didn't keep catching.
"When owly, daydreamy writers have become more important than family."
Now he turned and pointed fiercly to the scar along his hairline. The mark indentical to all three Carnivals.
"When you're undoing it all!"
The strangest thing followed. There were no apologies. No look of reverence. Not even the meeting of eyes. His brother, his blood, his Felix, simply turned and walked away.
He was Ovid halted.
For now.
Full figures never haunted anyone, only faces. Faces of the past and possibility. Lost, vanished, discarded. Perhaps a combination of the three. Had they left willingly or were they pushed? Had they served their purpose and had no need to linger after or been unable to linger because there purpose had been served? Many hours of frustration and pacing had been wasted on trying to capture the answer to that question.
Let me colour her in.
Oh, how she had been coloured! Gold, bronze, platinum. A beautiful and precious metal. A mineral that fuelled parts he denied or couldn't quite master. That delirious feeling of pursuit and capture. The delicious effort of exertion. The bird in a finely gilted cage of blush and eyeshadow. She had always been too outwardly bright for them. He saw much of himself in her. It may have been a shallow preoccupation but both of them shared the quality of holding the gaze of others. Her for her beauty, him for his roses from nowhere and rainbows from his sleeve. Similar creatures, and that was a rarity to find.
There had been times when he'd forgotten himself. When his touches had been slightly too affectionate, that bit too revealing of potential depths beneath the glittering surface. Times when for a brief moment he wasn't reminded he was half a man. A third of a man, if technicalities were important. Forgotten his own limitations.
"Why did you kiss me like that?"
Do you always ask? I thought you'd expect it by now.
"Yes. I have been expecting it. But not in the middle of a lot of people! Not with your brother watching."
I suppose I thought... I thought I might carry a guarded citadel by storm.
"What are you talking about? There's nothing guarded about me. I'm not a citadel."
Who's talking about you? I'm the citadel. Or I ought to be.
Damn Felix. He felt the same emotion, thought the exact same thought that he had back then. It was though he spent much of his life frozen in time. Damning and celebrating his brothers in equal measure. Being damned and celebrated by them. All the while so close to the world and yet with an invisible but impenetrable wall between him and it. Dead man walking. Dead men can walk, talk, dance and feel the gentle sunlight caressing their features but only on one side. A part will always belong to those shadows.
Would things have been dramatically altered had he indulged himself in her? Would he have spared her feelings and the feelings of her family? He thought no. For there was always more than one brother in any relationship either of them decided to partake in. If he hadn't continued to pursue that Adriadne, if she had heeded the warnings and not continued to reciprocate, perhaps he would have been able to experience what it was that made them both ignore reason and portends of doom. He would have been able to paint her for more than just one night.
That had been reason enough for Harry's decimation if nothing else. He was Ovid Carnival, destroyer of creators. The game was his, not something for him to take part in. Metamorphoses by Ovid. He had been denied his chance. His Christobel.
And Ovid Carnival was never one to be denied.
I remembered everything the first time. I remember everything this second time around. Why should the third, the fourth, the fifth, sixth, hundred and seventh time be any different?
There are few memories I'd deem important enough or meaningful enough to want to preserve. I tend to be a whimsical sort of fellow, I regard most things as frivolous and perhaps too trivial. Few things truly grip me enough to attribute such significance to them.
I would enjoy recalling Christobel. The first encounter at the Hide, her romantic joy at the conjured roses. The night I adorned her with magic and mysticism and made her the most stunning work of art that ever lived and breathed. The way she would fall at every word, hang on every syllable intended for her ears.
Though it would be almost an insult to forget dear Ariadne. I'm loathed to say I owe her that much, for there's a chance I wouldn't be in the position to be picking and choosing memories if not for her, but I cannot completely deny our involvement. There will always be a link between us, the four of us, and one that goes deeper than Felix's proposals and heart-felt confessions. Her face when her beloved blue-shirted brother told her how alike he found us both to be would be a picture to keep.
'A master of puppets? Surely not I, shy, quiet, bespectacled Harry!'
Her memory belongs to him, and I the troublesome interloper.
What a conundrum! Each with its own flaws and demerits. Neither appears to be the less of two evils, not really.
Myself, I have never been particularly gullible. I was a good manipulator of people in my other days ('moving the puppets' as my dear sister branded it) and it would be fair to say I still can be. I witness some of the outrageously implausible and desperately naive notions that people will take on board and find myself thankful I'm not quite as foolish. Though how charming, how agreeable it would be to dwell in a state of blissful ignorance for part of the time. A question of innocence, it seems, and innocence is something I am dearly lacking. I would be wary of trusting people so readily, of being drawn in by their words but 'afraid' is a step too far.
I was skeptical of my father many a time. He would make atrocious, wicked threats in his voice with the hysterical rise. I would simply shrug him off or laugh and carry on in my activites. Yes, I doubted him and all his villainy. It cost me dearly in the end. Though there was never a time I could say I was afraid of him or my own doubts. Even now I look back on it with an air of contemplation, a sort of melancholy and a deep-seated rage. How dare he rob me of my world? Our fight was due to last many more years. What was the reason behind his coldness and contempt?
He was afraid of me, and I did not believe in him. The fear in this question is gravely misplaced.
'Seven Ways to Outwit the Black King. Advice to Mortals by the Goddess of Wisdom and the Boy Enchanter.'
They had written the book together, Minerva and he. Cut off from other children, frightened of their father, they created wild, wonderful lives for themselves. Their garden kingdom and all its inhabitants. Gave themselves titles to take them further away from the place they were forced to inhabit and the man that would seek to ultimately destroy them.
They had spent their days together, each clinging to and relying on the other because there was no one else. She could be very hard on him but they were all they had nonetheless. One day they would escape togther. One day they would beat him, take the power. One day...
Where was she when he needed her the most? When the power got too much and the Black King used it against them in the most terrible, terrible way? Where was the Goddess of Wisdom then? She abandoned her Boy Enchanter and lost him more than she already had. Lost him forever.
His worst flaw. Is it the trickery? The tendency to view people as novelties, as a new puppet begging for its strings to be pulled? Instigating chaos and inviting in the ruin of others? The fierce protection of his brothers and all the secrets they held? His desire, his need to visit that dangerous, delicious Kingdom of Too Far once too often?
No, none of these things. While they may be flaws, to some, they're not the worst of them all. Before Suriel had laid his final deathly kiss upon them at the hands of Edward, there had been so much more to him. Now he was one of three, a part, an element. A man born into being by a childish seance and the once-private novel of that Ariadne. Unable to act purely on instinct, as that was Haddy's domain. Incapable of swimming in the waters of true, deep feeling. The kind that touched the very nature of your soul, sorched the heart or made it soar. Therein was Felix's world. True, they walked in one another's worlds from time to time but never truly owned any but their own. One third of a man, and not even a man at that. A ghost, a distant memory. A violent ending that refused to settle. One that could touch and be touched, feel the sun on his face and the odd tug at his emotions, experience the world but never truly belong to this time and place.
A trick to the core.
Why, dear Belen, of course. To be a winged seducer of impressionable princesses. A tall, striking figure with dark locks that... How were they described? Seemed to have been bleached by the moon rather than the sun. Stalking through the night, a demon of paradise taking over hearts. Not to mention far less civil places. If the heart can be called civil. Beds of blossom. Ariadne did create a quite sumptuous bodice-ripper for herself. If only I could lay entire claim to playing the lead.
Or perhaps Felix, my dear brother. Oh, to have loved and been loved! To be married by grass and witnessed by the sea. How wonderfully romantic! A gentle brush of the hand, of lips. Who wouldn't live for such basic, complex pleasures? His chilidish arrogance. Best of us all indeed! Heart rules the head!
Benny. To be a child again and have nothing but inconsequential worries. To look upon the world in grunt and moo without being thought strange. Without knowing what lurks behind even the most seemingly innocent of things.
Now I own very few possessions. A few clothes and others necessities that can be carried in a pack. The bathing suit that Christo favoured so much. A life full of travel doesn't permit one many things. Have you ever tried carrying an easy chair, a feather bed, a box of magician's tricks over great distances?
Suriel, the benevolent angel of death. Irreversibly changes an entire life with one swift, cruel blow. Three lives, depending on how you'd like to look at things. Suriel, oh how you betrayed us! Never would have Bagnold or Lord Rake-Rake commited such an act against the very ones who named them! The price we pay when children think they can be the masters of life and death.
And, of course, the Hide. The scene of all our triumphant misadventures and grave misfortunes. Though no longer ours, technically speaking. Long gone is the lilly wallpaper of the days we spent there but it belongs to the Carnivals all the same. Some could argue that my actions were an effort to reclaim the Hide. I, however, would say that such an observer is reading far too much into the matter. A simple trickster has no need for such depths.