Post by Liessel on Apr 22, 2024 14:50:39 GMT -5
They would pass through the same darkness, and emerge into a night that--
--was pale, beyond the cloak of the yew's heavy branches, with pre-dawn.
They hadn't been gone so long, had they?
Above their heads were the mirror images of the branches they had stood on below--on their undersides, at least, and those branches were empty of birds. The root base was empty of Allbelow.
"I wonder what time it is." Adeline said as they emerged back into Fortingall. The climb down had been one of careful concentration to not fall. The walk back a silent one because even in the darkness it seemed as though Liessel carried a heavy weight on her shoulders.
So much so that she looked over at the former priestess. "Are you alright?"
The pale wash of early morning daylight made the world seem slightly washed out as they stepped from darkness into the world they had come from.
Liessel barely registered Adeline's question at first, her thoughts heavy with the idea that they had been down with the Great Yew tree far longer than it had seemed. It felt, to her, as if moments had passed in the blink of an eye.
Adeline's words did seep in, though, like a trickle of water running against roots down through soil. "Hm?" The soft sound came, Liessel looking toward Adeline. In that moment the question became clear and she found herself nodding gently, "I am just tired, I think. It was a long journey to get here, and that took more out of me than I had thought it might."
"The walk or what happened back there?"
Which, as she was looking back towards the Yew tree, Adeline was still trying to work out exactly what had happened.
Her eyes flickered up to the sky, a frown on her face. "Tomorrow morning, we need to be in the sunlight." She announced as the early morning light was working its way. "As we were when we arrived from the Fens. I would say now but..." It was another glance to the little village that was soon to be waking up. "It will have to be tomorrow morning."
"Both, perhaps," Liessel answered, using that moment and those words to hide the grimace that wanted to rise to her expression. She didn't glance back toward the Yew or look out over the village as she shifted into that topic a moment later, "We can set something up on the roof of Flynn and Flynn again, unless you can come up with a better location."
"Flynn and Flynn will work." She replied. "I don't think they've taken their blankets down. So we should have a safe space to wash in the sunlight."
Thinking of the first time experiencing the fae tunnels and the warm sunlight on her skin was a bitter sweetness. Her little nephews spreading their arms out like birds flying through the sky. Her brother kissing his wife's forehead while they adapted to a new and strange world. Her mother fainted on the grass in her father's arms. And Adeline smiling at Cyrus.
"It has been a long night." She agreed finally. "You still have your room yes? Do you think you'll return there for the day and rest?"
"If they haven’t, it wouldn't take much to string them back up again. And no. If we are to see the sunrise at Flynn and Flynn tomorrow I will need to check out of my room this morning and make my way back to London. I can rest once I get there. If I stay in Edinburgh for the day, I'll miss the sunrise tomorrow."
"Would you rather take the tunnels again or catch the train that will arrive here..." When was the train expected to arrive at Fortingall?
Liessel was heading for her bag while reaching up to pull those dry needles from her hair, "The tunnels, I think, if we can. The train isn't due in Aberfeldy until this afternoon. Will we need more milk, sugar and a fireplace for a return trip?"
"Yes." Her brows pinched together, looking around at the little village as if she could conjure everything they needed right there on the spot.
"Perhaps we should find an inn."
Liessel spent a moment opening her bag and tucking the needles she'd gotten from the Yew into the notebook she had stuffed into her bag, slipping the thin pieces of the past between pages for safe keeping. The paper itself was water damaged, wrinkled and slightly discolored from exposure to water making the fibers a little stiff as she slid the needles away. The book was put back into her bag, and she picked it up at the same moment that her other hand was dipping into the pocket she had put her little note in. "Fortingall Hotel," She read, "Right across from the church."
She looked up, toward Adeline and then rose onto her tiptoes. There wasn't much to see from where they were at behind the white wall of the church yard, but Liessel tried anyway.
"What will you do with them?" She asked, watching as Liessel put the needles into her bag along with the book.
Dropping back down from her toes, there in the shade of the Yew tree, Liessel looked toward Adeline and then down toward her bag, "I will keep them. When I get back to London I am going to wrap them carefully and make a home for them in the pages of my notebook with the other things I've collected. They will be safe there."
"But is there nothing else you plan to do with them?"
Adeline imagined Liessel tucking the needles in between pages like pressed flowers as wives did for their wedding keepsakes.
"What else could I do with them? They are mine, now, as are the names that they belong to. My notebook is the safest place I can think of to keep them." From looking down at the bag, Liessel lifted her gaze and blinked at the way the pale light surrounded Adeline not too far from where she stood. The breeze blew overhead, rustling leaves in tiny whispers. Where they trying to say something? It was hard for her to tell.
"I don't know." Adeline confessed with a little shake of her head. "I just... it seemed as though you had greater plans for what happens after you received the names from the Yew tree." She sighed. "I apologize."
"No need to apologize, Miss Webber," Liessel said before she shook her head and corrected herself, "Sorry -- Adeline. I hadn't known what form the receiving of names would take when I had set out to come up here. I didn't know if I would be sitting down to tea with a tree, with it as fully animated as Missus White, or if it would be something like what we saw. My plan, then, had been to simply take what the Yew could tell me and carry it with me the way I do with everything else, the same way you do when someone tells you a story. It becomes yours once you hear it, it becomes a part of you. That was all that I had been prepared for. Whatever," She spared a glance then back toward the tree with its winding, thick trunk, "I had learned, I was going to wait and see what the Yew said before setting up my next steps."
Adeline didn't fully agree with Liessel's take on what happens when a story is given or taken. But it wasn't the time to quibble over different viewpoints as Liessel charged on with her explanation.
"I hope you find something from this that gives you the answers you are searching for." Because it seemed very clear that even though Liessel had started a new life, she was still very tangled in her worlds past. Understandably so but it made Adeline wonder if she would ever bravely charge forward without the excuse of looking behind. Another comment that was perhaps not the best time to say aloud.
After all, the ground was still unsteady beneath her feet here.
"We should get to the inn then?"
Turning away from the Yew tree, Liessel gave Adeline a small nod before dipping down to gather her bag back into her hand. The little note was stuffed away as she moved to step out from beneath the shade of the tree and into the pale-wash of morning light, "What the Yew gave me is a very large piece to the puzzle -- several of them. Gunnar and Sigrid are ancestors of my mother. Salvus and Fausta Artico are ancestors of Septimius. That is why I asked for them specifically. What I saw when I touched their needles was not seeing, exactly, but more of a sense of who they were and the lives that they lived."
"So what does knowing this information mean to you?"
Pushing forward, Adeline spared glances to both Liessel while also keeping on the lookout for the Fortingall Hotel. The town didn't seem very large. Hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a walk.
"I am -- not sure yet. It will take some time for me to figure that out," The light beyond the shadow of the yew tree carried with it the pale pinks and blues that came with a dawn just rising. It cast the village of Fortingall into its pale wash, reflecting off of the while buildings and against windows that seemed to shimmer with it, "It certainly answers some of the 'why's, but not many of the 'how's. It is a good place to start from. A much better place than the little I had started with."
"I think I see the hotel." With the rising light, it was much easier to identify the buildings they were passing. The postal. A small grocers. A shop that looked like they sold ribbons.
"And that is very good to know. Hopefully you will find what you are looking for when this is all at its end."