Gathering up the Past from the Ruins

[polly_okeefe]

A tree had fallen on my hut.

I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise. We'd gone through a whole hurricane. Jack's hut was so badly damaged, he and Logan were thinking about moving. And, irony of ironies, I had been thinking of moving. Moving in with Zell. Well, not much choice, now.

I stood on the trunk of the tree that was now horizontal, laid

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[gunbladescar]

While they'd been at the compound, I'd been at the dojo keeping an eye on things as best I could. It probably would have been a lot safer if I'd gone to the compound, especially now that I'm looking at her hut with a tree laying on it, but at the time, it just seemed like a good idea. Well ... maybe not a good idea, but one that no one was going to talk me out of.

"There's a lot of it," I say, then realizing maybe she needs some comforting or reassuring words, I add, "Glad you weren't in it at the time. Can I help with something?"

[polly_okeefe]

I smiled. I suppose we all had to count our blessings in times like this. "Thanks," I said. "I guess we start salvaging. Sift through the rubble and find what's worth keeping."

Though the place looked so flat, it looked like my furniture was destroyed too.

[gunbladescar]

Great. She wants me to find something worth keeping. It's a squashed hut. If she had anything worth keeping, she should have taken it with her. Still, nothing to do for it except start shifting, so I shrug and start overturning debris.

"You actually have stuff you want to keep here?" I ask to pass the time.

[polly_okeefe]

"Well, if there are clothes in here that haven't been completely smooshed in the mud, I'll take them," I said. "It's one less visit to the clothes box. I also have some souvenirs I'd like to keep. I spent almost two years in this hut. That's a lot of memories. Good memories, too, despite the things the Island's pulled."

I tipped up a wooden panel and let it fall. The other side has my handwriting on it. Names and occupations of the first people I met on the Island. Back when I was madly trying to find the commonalities and figure out what was going on. Back before I figured it out, and wished I hadn't. I hadn't updated the thing in a year.

"Huh," I said, staring at it.

[gunbladescar]

I nod as she talks, I guess that makes sense. The only place I've ever been for two years was the Garden and I guess I did have stuff there even though for the longest time it didn't feel like, or rather I didn't realize that it was, home. The only things I have in the hut that'll be moving to the Dojo, probably sooner now rather than later given the state of hers, are the things I arrived with, Aries' things and clothes. And I guess that book Belle gave me, the fairytale.

I'm all caught up in my thoughts, as usual, just sifting through whatever I can when she says something like she's found something. I look up and over in her direction. "Find something?"

[polly_okeefe]

"Oh, just a momento," I said.

The problem with my chart is that I'd left out an entire third column, not having all the information. Dairine Callahan - Wizard - (Book). Lucy Pevensie - Other World - (Book). I was very aware at that moment that I could add Zell Dincht and Squall -- Mercenary heroes - video game, to the list. And I hated that knowledge.

I let the piece of wall drop. "It's just some graffiti I did during my early days. I'm not taking that with me."

[gunbladescar]

Graffiti? I wouldn't have picked her as the type to write on her walls. I certainly hadn't noticed anything when we'd been living there. But ... then I guess you can never really tell. "Oh. Alright," I reply, getting back to work.

As I'm working, for some reason, my mind starts wondering what's the worst thing I could possibly find in Polly's hut that I wouldn't want to find. Dirty laundry? Her under garments? That would be pretty bad. Worse though would be something for just she and Zell like when I caught him in the laundry room with that spiked collar around his neck. I'm thinking maybe this is a bad idea now. I just know I'm going to find something horrible like that.

[polly_okeefe]

Pushing aside another broken panel reveals a pair of books, miraculously dry, which I set aside in the pile to keep. Looking around, I catch a gleam out of the corner of my eye. I turn, and see something on the ground near Squall. Something metal.

I pointed. "There's something near your foot."

[gunbladescar]

I've apparently gotten myself so nervous about finding those things of hers that I don't want to find that I've completely missed the six inch dagger at my feet. It's really a good thing it wasn't poisonous. Reaching down, I pick it up and bring it over to her. It has all sorts of intricate designs on it and it looks like maybe there's more to it than a dagger. It does beg the question of why Polly has it.

"What's it for?" I ask, unable to contain my curiosity about such an item, when otherwise I might have just handed it to her and gone back to searching to get this over and done. I really don't want to find any of her private things.

[polly_okeefe]

"Thanks," I said. I turned it over in my hand. "I came here with this. It belongs to the People of the Wind, an ancient tribe that existed years before my time. Before I came here, I fell through a time gate and ended up trapped there. But I managed to get out and avoid being sacrificed to end a drought. One of their leaders gave me this. A souvenir, I guess."

I'd had it stashed away. I hadn't looked at it for over a year. Not since my freak-out over that madman that pulled a sword on Coraline.

[gunbladescar]

Wind people, huh? Kind of sound like my kind of people. Ok so they don't really sound like my kind of people. I really just miss traveling by air instead all of this walking business. At least we don't have to worry about random encounters here.

... Did she just say time gate? Mostly what I was expecting to hear was 'blah, blah, blah, I got this knife.' Instead it's something about time travel. "How did you fall into a time gate?" I ask. I'm interested in this story, but I'm too cool to change my tone from anything other than my usual I'm not really interested voice.

[polly_okeefe]

"I tripped?" I gave him a sardonic smile. Normally I wouldn't just share the fact that I had travelled through time before coming to the Island, but with Squall and Zell being from another world, with a sorceress trying to control all time, that removed my story from the list of things not to talk to people about. "Some sort of localized phenomenon, I guess. Though it seems weird things tend to follow our family. My parents had their own adventures before they had me. Let's just say that the idea of being home one moment and swept to some strange land the next wasn't the hardest thing I've had to wrap my head around."

[gunbladescar]

With a conclusion like that, I have no choice not to ask her what's the hardest thing. Waking up as Laguna had definitely been a strange one for me. "So ... what was then?"

[polly_okeefe]

The question surprises me, but I guess I opened myself up for it. Squall seems good for picking out details I missed. "mostly that I'm a prisoner, here," I said, after some thought. "That I can't go home until this place is done with me. The fact there is obviously an intelligence behind it."

[gunbladescar]

"You think there's an intelligence to it?" I ask. There didn't seem to be anything wholly unusual about this place other than its lack of magic and random encounters. I guess I could see being a prisoner being a difficult thing to wrap your head around, but I ... well we, Zell and I, have been through so much weirder. I'd already been a prisoner in a real prison, an underground one. I'd been tortured there by Seifer and I scarcely thought of it. And then I'd been in Dissidia with no way home, or so we'd thought. Not to mention our time spent in Ultimecia's dimension, but then we'd hoped that our plan to return home would work. So being trapped somewhere with no way home on the horizon wasn't new to me. Probably the most difficult thing for me to wrap my head around would have been my mother's body lying on the beach. That had sent me to therapy. And then subsequently made me realize all the blame I'd been putting on Laguna might have been misplaced.

"When will it be done with you?"

[polly_okeefe]

That was a depressing question. "I don't know," I said. "If the Island was absolutely cruel, it would be the moment I was perfectly happy, but I'm still here with Zell. I don't know what it wants." I bite my lip and wonder if I should continue. This could be dangerous. If I say too much, Squall might stumble on the truth of what we are -- of what he is -- and I'd hate to do that to him. But he doesn't deserve to be lied to. "I'm sure there's intelligence here. It's too... personal. Too direct. No way it could be any natural phenomenon."