[Cinead] Morning Chores
My bed tastes like the boy when I wake, but he’s not there. For a moment, I’m confused when a dozen other scents swirl through my memory (Nine fingers, a whiff of iron, warm rain, gardenias) - others I have known, perhaps. I lay in bed until the memories pass me by, leaving me only with the scent of heat and a faint wisp of wood smoke.
I rise when I get too cold to stay in bed, go about my morning as the house wakes. My stone-boy makes oatmeal and it smells awful. I decide to escape outside to check the garden. Cold mornings mean frost. Some of the plants don’t care for it, need to be coddled and tended.
I’m outside. It’s cold and I burrow deeply into my winter coat that I don’t remember putting on. The garden needs me, so I follow the paths, the arrows laid into the stone. I pluck a weed here, breathe fresh life into a shrub there. In the winter, little truly needs to be done.
The thick thule fog covers the ground, shrouds the hills. The grass is damp and chill; I can feel it through my boots and I shiver again in the gray light filtering through the clouds.
My warm-boy is out today, doing some sort of complicated dance - but not. It’s not a dance I’ve ever seen before (Isn’t it?), and has no proper rhythm to it. Something tugs at the edge of my memory, but it dances out of reach when I try to grab it. His coat is off, laid across a bench and he wears no shoes. The fog steams off of him, never quite touches him, though it clings to his eyelashes and hair.
I watch him for a long time before he opens his eyes and sees me. He gasps and his eyes widen in fright (morning dawns and he rolls from me, terrified; I murmur soft words into his ear, sing a snatch of melody I don’t know how I know). “It’s cold,” I tell him. I’m not the thing you fear.
He straightens from his wary posture and closes the distance between us in a few long strides. A foot from me, he radiates warmth. “Is that any better?” he asks softly.
I lay my head on his shoulder and wrap my arms around his waist. He is hot and damp, tastes of warm grass, heather, and woodsmoke. His muscular body freezes with tension, then relaxes almost as soon as it starts. “Why are you afraid of me?”
“I... I'm not. Not... I mean... of you.”
“No,” I agree. “But I… I remind you of something.”
He moves oddly and then something is in his hand, but I can’t see it from where I stand pressed against him. “Yes. But it’s not… your fault.” There is hesitation in his voice. “The situation is a little the same.”
I remind him of his keeper. “Oh.” I don’t know what to say, but I draw away a little. I don’t want to hurt him or scare him any more than he already is. He lets me go and winds a scarf around his hands, blue and gold paisley.
“It's... I'm sorry. It's not you, it's really not. You've... only helped me.” He looks pained, eyes firmly on the ground, not daring to look at me.
I extend a hand, even though the air is cold, so it interrupts his line of sight. He looks at the hand, uncertain, so I turn it over, palm up. “Here. Sit with me for a bit.”
One of his hands finds its way out of the scarf, and he places his fingers cautiously in my hand. His hands, like the rest of him, are hot like a rock in the sun. We walk the few steps to the bench hand in hand, and he opens his coat so we can both sit on it. We sit in silence and I enjoy the proximity of heat and the way the mist steams off him. The burning scent he has on him dissipates and I can smell cedar and sap. I lean in close, wanting to wrap myself in his heat and scent. “Winter is good for tangerines,” I tell him.
“Is it? I would have... I mean, I thought they were a summer fruit.”
I smile. “Winter. They grow in warmer places in the winter. You only see them here now. Tangerines in the toes of stockings, you know.” Christmas stockings with tangerines in the toes and nuts and candy… long winter nights… white drifts of snow outside the paned windows… crackling fires and the scent of wood smoke… I shake my head of the memory. Here and now. Stay here. “I'm sorry I scare you.”
He looks down at my hand, still in his, troubled. “I…” Then, deliberately, he turns it over to look at the back of my hand, covered in gold scales and flecked with green, places it on his knee. On my hands, the scales are so fine that they look almost like skin. Almost. I flick my tongue and can taste his fear, his reticence. “At dawn, every morning, she became a dragon.” A pause before he continues faintly. “All bright gold.”
I remind him of his keeper. “Oh.” We are silent for a moment and I search for the words. For once, my memories are silent, and I am keenly aware of the wet grass and his proximity, how he traces the pattern of gold, the places between the bones where the scales are more green, a bright and vibrant green, the green of spring leaves and summer grass. “These are never easy. Never, never easy.”
“N... no.” His fingers stop their cautious movement and he covers my narrow hand with his large one, warming my fingers where they’ve become cold. “You don't. Scare me, I mean.”
“Good.” I lean into him and lay my head against his shoulder and I can feel some of the tension drain out of him with the deep breath he takes. If I could, I’d draw the coat up around him, climb into his lap and wrap my arms fully around his waist and the coat around us both. Then, I recall his strange dance when I came here, delighted beyond measure that I remember it at all, and frustrated that it tugs at my errant memories without revealing themselves to me. “You were... not dancing.”
“No… no, not dancing. It was something that... I used to know how to do. I forgot most of it. In the Hedge, you know.” He pauses with the mien of thinking. “I just needed to... to move, this morning. To feel that again. Winter is getting deeper, and I had to do that before it got too cold.”
I close my eyes, taste the air. “Cold,” I agree. He is warm. I do many things before it gets too cold, but his definition of cold and mine are obviously different.
“Cold passes. And this isn't so bad. There's no snow here.”
He presses into me and I shiver at the thought of snow, draw my feet up under me on the bench. “Snow. I don't like snow.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Have you stayed anywhere snowy?” he asks hesitantly.
Snowdrifts as high as my head, snowball fights and mittens. Running, running, slip through the Hedge… It’s cold here, so cold, desperately cold, cold toes, cold fingers, cold tongue… Snow tastes different here, feels different - cold, not soft and warm… shivering, cold, violent shivers… people take me from the snow…”
“T-Tanis?”
My warm boy sits beside me, tense and wary. “What?”
“I…you were... quiet. A l-long time.”
“Oh. I see.” I’ve scared him again, and I didn’t mean to. The memories are already fading, lost to time and distance. I smile, try to be reassuring. “I'm sorry.”
“Oh, I... it's... it's okay. I just wasn't... expecting that.” He watches me carefully, warily.
I shrug, try to explain it. He’s been with me for at least a season, he grows things in my garden, in the plot of land I gave him. I know he understands part of it. “It's. Er.” I draw away a little, but leave my hand on his knee. “It's... my memory isn't good.” I meet his eyes, hoping that he understands. “The memories, they're in here,” I tap my temple with my free hand. “What were we talking about?”
He watches me for a moment, still tense. “I just asked about... where else you'd stayed. It's... it's not important, if it's hard.”
I smile and squeeze his knee gently. “It's not that, exactly. It's just... They're all in here. But they come and they go. I can't quite hold on to them.”
He smiles brilliantly and the fear vanishes. “Oh... I know. I figured that out pretty fast. I've never minded.” His eyes flick down for a moment. “You recognize me, even if you don't know my name.”
I nod quietly. I don’t like names. I can’t keep them straight in my head, but only sometimes and sometimes I remember them… “Sometimes I do. Just never when it would be convenient.”
He looks at me sadly and I’ve seen this look a thousand times, on a thousand different faces that run through my mind. “That must be hard... sometimes. Is there anything I can do to help you? I don't mind reminding you of things.”
I shake my head, give his knee a pat. “You do enough. You help in the gardens.” I don’t need another keeper.
He looks around the garden, the gentle walks emerging from the fog as the morning progresses. “I do... it was some of what I did... there. In Faerie. It's... nice to help make this place grow.”
“Do you mind it?” I don’t want to be his keeper either.
“No. It makes me happy. All of this... the garden, the others, you.” He smiles faintly.
“You don't have to do it if you don't like. But,” I add quickly, afraid that he’ll think I’m pushing him away, “I'm happy for the help.”
“I want to.” He says it firmly and with quiet conviction.
I nod, convinced. “Now. I need to keep going. The cold gets into my bones easily. Would you like to join me, or do you want to finish your not-dance?”
He rises slowly and nods. “I'll come with you.” He unwinds the blue and gold scarf from his hands and puts it around my shoulders. It is warm and smells of him, dry cedar.
I smile and lever myself off the bench, feel my hips crack and pop in the cold. “We ought to see how bad the frost is. And then tea, hm?”
“Mm, yes. That sounds... good.” He picks up his coat, grabs a thermos that had been sitting a little ways away in the heather, and then we start down the path again, following the stone chevrons in the paving, winding our way back through the garden towards home.
I rise when I get too cold to stay in bed, go about my morning as the house wakes. My stone-boy makes oatmeal and it smells awful. I decide to escape outside to check the garden. Cold mornings mean frost. Some of the plants don’t care for it, need to be coddled and tended.
I’m outside. It’s cold and I burrow deeply into my winter coat that I don’t remember putting on. The garden needs me, so I follow the paths, the arrows laid into the stone. I pluck a weed here, breathe fresh life into a shrub there. In the winter, little truly needs to be done.
The thick thule fog covers the ground, shrouds the hills. The grass is damp and chill; I can feel it through my boots and I shiver again in the gray light filtering through the clouds.
My warm-boy is out today, doing some sort of complicated dance - but not. It’s not a dance I’ve ever seen before (Isn’t it?), and has no proper rhythm to it. Something tugs at the edge of my memory, but it dances out of reach when I try to grab it. His coat is off, laid across a bench and he wears no shoes. The fog steams off of him, never quite touches him, though it clings to his eyelashes and hair.
I watch him for a long time before he opens his eyes and sees me. He gasps and his eyes widen in fright (morning dawns and he rolls from me, terrified; I murmur soft words into his ear, sing a snatch of melody I don’t know how I know). “It’s cold,” I tell him. I’m not the thing you fear.
He straightens from his wary posture and closes the distance between us in a few long strides. A foot from me, he radiates warmth. “Is that any better?” he asks softly.
I lay my head on his shoulder and wrap my arms around his waist. He is hot and damp, tastes of warm grass, heather, and woodsmoke. His muscular body freezes with tension, then relaxes almost as soon as it starts. “Why are you afraid of me?”
“I... I'm not. Not... I mean... of you.”
“No,” I agree. “But I… I remind you of something.”
He moves oddly and then something is in his hand, but I can’t see it from where I stand pressed against him. “Yes. But it’s not… your fault.” There is hesitation in his voice. “The situation is a little the same.”
I remind him of his keeper. “Oh.” I don’t know what to say, but I draw away a little. I don’t want to hurt him or scare him any more than he already is. He lets me go and winds a scarf around his hands, blue and gold paisley.
“It's... I'm sorry. It's not you, it's really not. You've... only helped me.” He looks pained, eyes firmly on the ground, not daring to look at me.
I extend a hand, even though the air is cold, so it interrupts his line of sight. He looks at the hand, uncertain, so I turn it over, palm up. “Here. Sit with me for a bit.”
One of his hands finds its way out of the scarf, and he places his fingers cautiously in my hand. His hands, like the rest of him, are hot like a rock in the sun. We walk the few steps to the bench hand in hand, and he opens his coat so we can both sit on it. We sit in silence and I enjoy the proximity of heat and the way the mist steams off him. The burning scent he has on him dissipates and I can smell cedar and sap. I lean in close, wanting to wrap myself in his heat and scent. “Winter is good for tangerines,” I tell him.
“Is it? I would have... I mean, I thought they were a summer fruit.”
I smile. “Winter. They grow in warmer places in the winter. You only see them here now. Tangerines in the toes of stockings, you know.” Christmas stockings with tangerines in the toes and nuts and candy… long winter nights… white drifts of snow outside the paned windows… crackling fires and the scent of wood smoke… I shake my head of the memory. Here and now. Stay here. “I'm sorry I scare you.”
He looks down at my hand, still in his, troubled. “I…” Then, deliberately, he turns it over to look at the back of my hand, covered in gold scales and flecked with green, places it on his knee. On my hands, the scales are so fine that they look almost like skin. Almost. I flick my tongue and can taste his fear, his reticence. “At dawn, every morning, she became a dragon.” A pause before he continues faintly. “All bright gold.”
I remind him of his keeper. “Oh.” We are silent for a moment and I search for the words. For once, my memories are silent, and I am keenly aware of the wet grass and his proximity, how he traces the pattern of gold, the places between the bones where the scales are more green, a bright and vibrant green, the green of spring leaves and summer grass. “These are never easy. Never, never easy.”
“N... no.” His fingers stop their cautious movement and he covers my narrow hand with his large one, warming my fingers where they’ve become cold. “You don't. Scare me, I mean.”
“Good.” I lean into him and lay my head against his shoulder and I can feel some of the tension drain out of him with the deep breath he takes. If I could, I’d draw the coat up around him, climb into his lap and wrap my arms fully around his waist and the coat around us both. Then, I recall his strange dance when I came here, delighted beyond measure that I remember it at all, and frustrated that it tugs at my errant memories without revealing themselves to me. “You were... not dancing.”
“No… no, not dancing. It was something that... I used to know how to do. I forgot most of it. In the Hedge, you know.” He pauses with the mien of thinking. “I just needed to... to move, this morning. To feel that again. Winter is getting deeper, and I had to do that before it got too cold.”
I close my eyes, taste the air. “Cold,” I agree. He is warm. I do many things before it gets too cold, but his definition of cold and mine are obviously different.
“Cold passes. And this isn't so bad. There's no snow here.”
He presses into me and I shiver at the thought of snow, draw my feet up under me on the bench. “Snow. I don't like snow.”
“No, you wouldn’t. Have you stayed anywhere snowy?” he asks hesitantly.
Snowdrifts as high as my head, snowball fights and mittens. Running, running, slip through the Hedge… It’s cold here, so cold, desperately cold, cold toes, cold fingers, cold tongue… Snow tastes different here, feels different - cold, not soft and warm… shivering, cold, violent shivers… people take me from the snow…”
“T-Tanis?”
My warm boy sits beside me, tense and wary. “What?”
“I…you were... quiet. A l-long time.”
“Oh. I see.” I’ve scared him again, and I didn’t mean to. The memories are already fading, lost to time and distance. I smile, try to be reassuring. “I'm sorry.”
“Oh, I... it's... it's okay. I just wasn't... expecting that.” He watches me carefully, warily.
I shrug, try to explain it. He’s been with me for at least a season, he grows things in my garden, in the plot of land I gave him. I know he understands part of it. “It's. Er.” I draw away a little, but leave my hand on his knee. “It's... my memory isn't good.” I meet his eyes, hoping that he understands. “The memories, they're in here,” I tap my temple with my free hand. “What were we talking about?”
He watches me for a moment, still tense. “I just asked about... where else you'd stayed. It's... it's not important, if it's hard.”
I smile and squeeze his knee gently. “It's not that, exactly. It's just... They're all in here. But they come and they go. I can't quite hold on to them.”
He smiles brilliantly and the fear vanishes. “Oh... I know. I figured that out pretty fast. I've never minded.” His eyes flick down for a moment. “You recognize me, even if you don't know my name.”
I nod quietly. I don’t like names. I can’t keep them straight in my head, but only sometimes and sometimes I remember them… “Sometimes I do. Just never when it would be convenient.”
He looks at me sadly and I’ve seen this look a thousand times, on a thousand different faces that run through my mind. “That must be hard... sometimes. Is there anything I can do to help you? I don't mind reminding you of things.”
I shake my head, give his knee a pat. “You do enough. You help in the gardens.” I don’t need another keeper.
He looks around the garden, the gentle walks emerging from the fog as the morning progresses. “I do... it was some of what I did... there. In Faerie. It's... nice to help make this place grow.”
“Do you mind it?” I don’t want to be his keeper either.
“No. It makes me happy. All of this... the garden, the others, you.” He smiles faintly.
“You don't have to do it if you don't like. But,” I add quickly, afraid that he’ll think I’m pushing him away, “I'm happy for the help.”
“I want to.” He says it firmly and with quiet conviction.
I nod, convinced. “Now. I need to keep going. The cold gets into my bones easily. Would you like to join me, or do you want to finish your not-dance?”
He rises slowly and nods. “I'll come with you.” He unwinds the blue and gold scarf from his hands and puts it around my shoulders. It is warm and smells of him, dry cedar.
I smile and lever myself off the bench, feel my hips crack and pop in the cold. “We ought to see how bad the frost is. And then tea, hm?”
“Mm, yes. That sounds... good.” He picks up his coat, grabs a thermos that had been sitting a little ways away in the heather, and then we start down the path again, following the stone chevrons in the paving, winding our way back through the garden towards home.