Aspasia - A Cabin (Part III - Conclusion)
With a soft sigh, but a look of determination on her face, Aspasia moves from the couch and takes a seat on the dust-coated pillows, trading Raven's journal for the book always left on the table resting against the back of the couch. Tracing her hand over the embroidery, with her back resting against the wall by the fireplace, she places a flashlight angled so it shines down, giving enough illumination for writing.
Taking a pen in hand, the Amazon leans forward, opening the book to the next empty page and starts to write.
*****
I can't hope that you wait for me to join you in the fields of Asphodel for your soul is bound to a great labor. I don't know where she is, so I don't know where you are. Almost for that more than anything else, my heart is full of hatred and anger.
Perhaps you and Exodus survive still in her body? If that is the case, it is not impossible that the vessel body of your being, called the Unholy will come here to our place.
I will not be here, my love. Not from fear. But, that is not what tapestry demands of me this time. The night I remember you - honor what ties us, I must be elsewhere. But, it is for you I go. For you above all other considerations.
That memory and the knowledge of your love, written in your hand, left for me to find, will give me the will to do what only I can do now.
Know I come here now, on the night before my travels, to rest a few hours, restore my soul. To prepare for the battle to come.
I have found your gift. Know, love, I have read it. I understand - not all of what you have done, but what the weapons is, what she is. And I know the course of my steps now. And the cost.
As you wrote to me, so I reply to you - I am unafraid.
You bought us time, you and Exodus both. I can not claim mastery of the occult anymore, and only now do I rail at the path which caused me to willingly sever from that knowledge and power which I could use in this time of great need. But, oathbreaker I will not be. So I trust in your words and in what I feel is truth.
Your creed is not my own, but honor we share.
***
Pausing, the Amazon flips back over pages in the book. She pauses, reading one entry in full before turning back to resume her writing.
***
You may not be here in this life with me, Raven, but as I promised in the first pages of this book, when I gifted it, I will fill the journal with my stories and memories. I will share with you all that is in my thoughts. Since the basis of what we have is the distance of constancy and honesty between us,
I will not give up this connection.
You are more distant to me than it would be to bring you forth in torpor dreams, but I will be constant in this. And when I am Charon's passenger, let the Moirae add the truth or falsehood of my intent to the weighing of my soul by the Trivum.
I will pretend as if you still may read the pages here and take comfort in that thought.
***
Aspasia closes her eyes, and leans her head back, taking a moment to compose her thoughts.
*****
Where you are Fate's chosen, I remain subject to her ire - still punished for daring to love one she has claimed as her own.
My keepers of memory have all that was between us, and perhaps they will share it with our heirs one night far from now, so that they will understand that our kind can find moments of respite despite what we are. And always, I am alone only with you on the night we first had each other.
I think on it now, the recent past.
The stragoi of history entwine with Kindred society again. It is a problem.
It was a Roman problem until they took the life of my Sydney. I have lost another daughter, Raven. Near to the same night as Hisa, only in years paced apart.
And that is not the whole of my woes. In this am Niobe reborn. My youngest is dead at the hands of one he called friend. Charles at the hand of his own embraced son.
You and Exodus were right. How you and he spoke of increasingly dangerous paths, that our world was growing darker and more dangerous. Would it surprise you to know we had conversations your sire and I of some similar ilk?
It was on the same night Pythia queried the gods for us. But aside from that, do you remember her words to Exodus in ritual?
"I see Athena, springing from the forehead of Zeus, full-born, as you were embraced full-born and prepared for your trials. I see Athens, her city, her children, spread out upon the world, lost to themselves. You are to Athena as Athens is to the Gangrel..”
"I see that even in your prayers, you feel abandoned. But you are not. You must lift the golden spear, and you will hear her once more.”
"When Hercules, a victim of Hera's hostility, undertook his arduous labors Athena stood at his side to help and comfort him. It was she who gave him the brazen cymbals whose sound frightened the birds of Lake Stymphalus. It was she who escorted him when he brought Cerberus from the underworld. She will be with you."
See I recall, when I say you and he still endure one great labor. I understand, my oath to it.
Time slips away and I must finish, Raven.
If my time in this world as the one you loved is about to end, know that you were in my thoughts.
Remember this as you have promised to find me, that the patterns of the tapestry are never set past the moment which is now. I know it. I will set a lantern will guide your path, that you will not come to harm. Even if we remember each other not, our souls will know. We will find each other.
********
Aspasia finishes writing the last sentence, then closes the book. She remains like a marble statue, still and cold for less than ten minutes in silence, remembering. She is careful, then, rising to replace this precious volume back exactly where it was previously, so the layer of dirt seems to be untouched.
Then, with a sorrowful glint in her eyes, she places next to it, closed, Raven's journal - intact excepting the single page in her hand, scribbled notes which she folds up and tucks into her hip pocket. Aspasia rests the dried rose atop it.
The flashlight is turned off and stored away again.
She walks the interior once more, putting everything back exactly as it was when she entered, or as close to it as possible. A shrine, an empty but carefully preserved shrine.
The flask of ouzo is in her hand as Aspasia steps outside. This she will take to the island, tuck it away in her box of treasures.
Aspasia locks the door. With reluctance, her hand slips slowly from the door knob.
When half-way up the road, just before the curve in the bend, the woman turns around, to gaze once more on this small place in the woods. She tries to memorize every line and shadow. Then, turning away Aspasia starts walking again into the distance, opening a phone as she speaks with a disembodied voice. "One last detour, then they are waiting for me. We leave tomorrow night."
Once more the clearing is empty and soon only sounds of the wind and rustling leaves fill the air.
Taking a pen in hand, the Amazon leans forward, opening the book to the next empty page and starts to write.
*****
I can't hope that you wait for me to join you in the fields of Asphodel for your soul is bound to a great labor. I don't know where she is, so I don't know where you are. Almost for that more than anything else, my heart is full of hatred and anger.
Perhaps you and Exodus survive still in her body? If that is the case, it is not impossible that the vessel body of your being, called the Unholy will come here to our place.
I will not be here, my love. Not from fear. But, that is not what tapestry demands of me this time. The night I remember you - honor what ties us, I must be elsewhere. But, it is for you I go. For you above all other considerations.
That memory and the knowledge of your love, written in your hand, left for me to find, will give me the will to do what only I can do now.
Know I come here now, on the night before my travels, to rest a few hours, restore my soul. To prepare for the battle to come.
I have found your gift. Know, love, I have read it. I understand - not all of what you have done, but what the weapons is, what she is. And I know the course of my steps now. And the cost.
As you wrote to me, so I reply to you - I am unafraid.
You bought us time, you and Exodus both. I can not claim mastery of the occult anymore, and only now do I rail at the path which caused me to willingly sever from that knowledge and power which I could use in this time of great need. But, oathbreaker I will not be. So I trust in your words and in what I feel is truth.
Your creed is not my own, but honor we share.
***
Pausing, the Amazon flips back over pages in the book. She pauses, reading one entry in full before turning back to resume her writing.
***
You may not be here in this life with me, Raven, but as I promised in the first pages of this book, when I gifted it, I will fill the journal with my stories and memories. I will share with you all that is in my thoughts. Since the basis of what we have is the distance of constancy and honesty between us,
I will not give up this connection.
You are more distant to me than it would be to bring you forth in torpor dreams, but I will be constant in this. And when I am Charon's passenger, let the Moirae add the truth or falsehood of my intent to the weighing of my soul by the Trivum.
I will pretend as if you still may read the pages here and take comfort in that thought.
***
Aspasia closes her eyes, and leans her head back, taking a moment to compose her thoughts.
*****
Where you are Fate's chosen, I remain subject to her ire - still punished for daring to love one she has claimed as her own.
My keepers of memory have all that was between us, and perhaps they will share it with our heirs one night far from now, so that they will understand that our kind can find moments of respite despite what we are. And always, I am alone only with you on the night we first had each other.
I think on it now, the recent past.
The stragoi of history entwine with Kindred society again. It is a problem.
It was a Roman problem until they took the life of my Sydney. I have lost another daughter, Raven. Near to the same night as Hisa, only in years paced apart.
And that is not the whole of my woes. In this am Niobe reborn. My youngest is dead at the hands of one he called friend. Charles at the hand of his own embraced son.
You and Exodus were right. How you and he spoke of increasingly dangerous paths, that our world was growing darker and more dangerous. Would it surprise you to know we had conversations your sire and I of some similar ilk?
It was on the same night Pythia queried the gods for us. But aside from that, do you remember her words to Exodus in ritual?
"I see Athena, springing from the forehead of Zeus, full-born, as you were embraced full-born and prepared for your trials. I see Athens, her city, her children, spread out upon the world, lost to themselves. You are to Athena as Athens is to the Gangrel..”
"I see that even in your prayers, you feel abandoned. But you are not. You must lift the golden spear, and you will hear her once more.”
"When Hercules, a victim of Hera's hostility, undertook his arduous labors Athena stood at his side to help and comfort him. It was she who gave him the brazen cymbals whose sound frightened the birds of Lake Stymphalus. It was she who escorted him when he brought Cerberus from the underworld. She will be with you."
See I recall, when I say you and he still endure one great labor. I understand, my oath to it.
Time slips away and I must finish, Raven.
If my time in this world as the one you loved is about to end, know that you were in my thoughts.
Remember this as you have promised to find me, that the patterns of the tapestry are never set past the moment which is now. I know it. I will set a lantern will guide your path, that you will not come to harm. Even if we remember each other not, our souls will know. We will find each other.
********
Aspasia finishes writing the last sentence, then closes the book. She remains like a marble statue, still and cold for less than ten minutes in silence, remembering. She is careful, then, rising to replace this precious volume back exactly where it was previously, so the layer of dirt seems to be untouched.
Then, with a sorrowful glint in her eyes, she places next to it, closed, Raven's journal - intact excepting the single page in her hand, scribbled notes which she folds up and tucks into her hip pocket. Aspasia rests the dried rose atop it.
The flashlight is turned off and stored away again.
She walks the interior once more, putting everything back exactly as it was when she entered, or as close to it as possible. A shrine, an empty but carefully preserved shrine.
The flask of ouzo is in her hand as Aspasia steps outside. This she will take to the island, tuck it away in her box of treasures.
Aspasia locks the door. With reluctance, her hand slips slowly from the door knob.
When half-way up the road, just before the curve in the bend, the woman turns around, to gaze once more on this small place in the woods. She tries to memorize every line and shadow. Then, turning away Aspasia starts walking again into the distance, opening a phone as she speaks with a disembodied voice. "One last detour, then they are waiting for me. We leave tomorrow night."
Once more the clearing is empty and soon only sounds of the wind and rustling leaves fill the air.