Where Memories Live
Once a month, more or less.
I'm still waiting
Di'aliz doesn't count the days. She goes when she wants to, or when she remembers, or wants to remember, though that's complicated.
I still bleed
The house wasn't hers before, but somewhere in her tangled mind it has become the house of her childhood, that sprawling white country villa with the glowy-red roof. The sunset coloured vine shouldn't grow in this soil, but
(Malacoda)
Di'aliz had spent an afternoon channelling Earth and Water, and it flourishes over the whitewashed bricks as beautifully as her mother's had. It is enclosed in fences, but subtly so it looks open past the garden - a strange mix of wildflowers and statues and cherry trees and glossy tropical bushes that she liked the colours of.
That's a sign that I'm still me
The gardener she hired was frankly baffled by the mix, and the survival of her garden has nothing to do with his tentative attempts to make sense of it, but she kept him on because he had a beard like the old man who would tell stories at the village fair and who told her she was pretty when no one else did. He mostly feeds the fish in the fountain that she keeps turned on too strong. Standing beside it quickly soaks through clothing with a soft misty spray as the gold-and-white fish swim peacefully through undisturbed water.
I'm still breathing
The housekeeper
(Mother)
is small and roundfaced and has light brown hair and blue eyes the same colour as Di'aliz has. She smiles warmly and strokes the girl's hair when she wants to be hugged, and so she never sees the fear in the woman's eyes. She and the maids
(Jesi and Lalla brought her up to be good and quiet when their mother died, father was too busy, of course)
keep the house tidy and clean when Di'aliz is away, and they take it in turns to feed the birds in their cages - and Di'aliz never asks how there are always songbirds to watch and talk to, when she lets them fly away free before she leaves each time.
I can see, so I must be alive for real
Birds and butterflies decorate the walls of her bedroom. She likes to nap curled up on the soft little bed kept ready for her just in case, though she never stays the night, not since she had tried to look after that baby
(Little brother, Jea'an, never saw him grow up after leaving to train in the Power)
for three nights. She wondered why people thought it was hard - her baby never cried, slept when she told it to, stayed where she put it. For those three days she could have stayed forever, walking the halls humming to the silent child cradled in her delicate arms.
When will I get there?
On the fourth day she was called away for an afternoon, and it was gone when she returned. She cried, and then brooded for nearly a week before Jesi found a kitten for her. Di'aliz kissed her and called the little marmalade thing Jea'an.
I should be here by now
There are books in the house - child's books, a young woman's collection of love stories. Pictures of people long dead stand quietly on little tables to make her smile at memories when she walks past. The long tapestry in the hall is the one she loved as a child, saved and restored to pristine brilliance.
Got it all worked out
Di'aliz wanders barefoot over the terracotta floor and yellow rugs, and remembers.
In time all I want is it away,
Gone too long and now its gone
It's gone
I'm still waiting
Di'aliz doesn't count the days. She goes when she wants to, or when she remembers, or wants to remember, though that's complicated.
I still bleed
The house wasn't hers before, but somewhere in her tangled mind it has become the house of her childhood, that sprawling white country villa with the glowy-red roof. The sunset coloured vine shouldn't grow in this soil, but
(Malacoda)
Di'aliz had spent an afternoon channelling Earth and Water, and it flourishes over the whitewashed bricks as beautifully as her mother's had. It is enclosed in fences, but subtly so it looks open past the garden - a strange mix of wildflowers and statues and cherry trees and glossy tropical bushes that she liked the colours of.
That's a sign that I'm still me
The gardener she hired was frankly baffled by the mix, and the survival of her garden has nothing to do with his tentative attempts to make sense of it, but she kept him on because he had a beard like the old man who would tell stories at the village fair and who told her she was pretty when no one else did. He mostly feeds the fish in the fountain that she keeps turned on too strong. Standing beside it quickly soaks through clothing with a soft misty spray as the gold-and-white fish swim peacefully through undisturbed water.
I'm still breathing
The housekeeper
(Mother)
is small and roundfaced and has light brown hair and blue eyes the same colour as Di'aliz has. She smiles warmly and strokes the girl's hair when she wants to be hugged, and so she never sees the fear in the woman's eyes. She and the maids
(Jesi and Lalla brought her up to be good and quiet when their mother died, father was too busy, of course)
keep the house tidy and clean when Di'aliz is away, and they take it in turns to feed the birds in their cages - and Di'aliz never asks how there are always songbirds to watch and talk to, when she lets them fly away free before she leaves each time.
I can see, so I must be alive for real
Birds and butterflies decorate the walls of her bedroom. She likes to nap curled up on the soft little bed kept ready for her just in case, though she never stays the night, not since she had tried to look after that baby
(Little brother, Jea'an, never saw him grow up after leaving to train in the Power)
for three nights. She wondered why people thought it was hard - her baby never cried, slept when she told it to, stayed where she put it. For those three days she could have stayed forever, walking the halls humming to the silent child cradled in her delicate arms.
When will I get there?
On the fourth day she was called away for an afternoon, and it was gone when she returned. She cried, and then brooded for nearly a week before Jesi found a kitten for her. Di'aliz kissed her and called the little marmalade thing Jea'an.
I should be here by now
There are books in the house - child's books, a young woman's collection of love stories. Pictures of people long dead stand quietly on little tables to make her smile at memories when she walks past. The long tapestry in the hall is the one she loved as a child, saved and restored to pristine brilliance.
Got it all worked out
Di'aliz wanders barefoot over the terracotta floor and yellow rugs, and remembers.
In time all I want is it away,
Gone too long and now its gone
It's gone