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Why yes - yes, it's been a while, hasn't it? But I'm here now. I always come home, my darlings - never forget that. No matter where I go, I always come back here.
Tonight I'm here to tell you a story. It's a story about... let's see, what's a handy mythological trope? Let's make her a princess. She was not, in point of fact, an especially beautiful princess, but she had bright eyes, a charming smile and an imagination that made people like spending time with her. She'd been given the traditional magical gifts at her christening - wealth, health, the usual shebang - but there was one other gift. She would always get what she wanted.
Now, I'm not saying this gift had been wished on her deliberately, by a fifth-column fairy determined to do evil by stealth. Maybe one of her fairy godmothers just hadn't quite thought it through. Maybe the fairy who'd been slated to give our princess the wisdom to want what was good for her got held up by a magical emergency at the nexus of worlds and missed her connection to the timeline the real christening happened in. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, as an occasionally-wise man once said. It hardly matters; the seeds of the damage were sown, and there was no unsowing.
Nevertheless, our princess grew up more or less all right. A little spoiled, a little silly, but not really a bad person. In her teens, her desire for excitement, adventure and really wild things led her to seek out other worlds; and because of her cursed blessing, she found the way to weave pathways into them out of pure words.
Oh, the adventures she had! She'd gathered a group of likeminded companions by this time; together they defeated giants, explored derelict spaceships mouldering in jungles, broke into dead sorcerers' trap-riddled tombs.
It was in one of those other worlds she met him first; an invisible spinner of words like nothing she had ever encountered. She was entranced by his tales of heroes, enthralled by his dark hints of adventures in worlds new to her; she wanted badly to hear that voice and see that imagined face first-hand.
So she followed his trail of words and stories, back to his home in the world that had brought them both to birth. She had nearly forgotten how to live in it, and when she met him she discovered he had never really learned. He was not a prince; he was the son of a toolmaker and he had worked hard all his life. But he had a thirst for adventure and a skill with the word-paths to strange worlds that surpassed her own; and he, too, had a curse that was, in some lights, a blessing. He had been born with one skin too few, so that he could feel every breath of story and intent around him. It was how and why he had learned to travel the lines of words and thought; in his own world he had to go about in armour, so that no one ever saw his face.
But she still had her gift; and she wanted to see him. She had the gift of charm, too; so when she told him she would be his skin, that the world would never hurt him again, he believed her. And so they were married.
Oh yes, there's more to the story. Perhaps one day I'll feel like telling it. But just for today - although even as I write, it's not today any longer - they lived happily ever after. Because now, after nineteen years, my darlings, I know what it was I really wanted.
Tonight I'm here to tell you a story. It's a story about... let's see, what's a handy mythological trope? Let's make her a princess. She was not, in point of fact, an especially beautiful princess, but she had bright eyes, a charming smile and an imagination that made people like spending time with her. She'd been given the traditional magical gifts at her christening - wealth, health, the usual shebang - but there was one other gift. She would always get what she wanted.
Now, I'm not saying this gift had been wished on her deliberately, by a fifth-column fairy determined to do evil by stealth. Maybe one of her fairy godmothers just hadn't quite thought it through. Maybe the fairy who'd been slated to give our princess the wisdom to want what was good for her got held up by a magical emergency at the nexus of worlds and missed her connection to the timeline the real christening happened in. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, as an occasionally-wise man once said. It hardly matters; the seeds of the damage were sown, and there was no unsowing.
Nevertheless, our princess grew up more or less all right. A little spoiled, a little silly, but not really a bad person. In her teens, her desire for excitement, adventure and really wild things led her to seek out other worlds; and because of her cursed blessing, she found the way to weave pathways into them out of pure words.
Oh, the adventures she had! She'd gathered a group of likeminded companions by this time; together they defeated giants, explored derelict spaceships mouldering in jungles, broke into dead sorcerers' trap-riddled tombs.
It was in one of those other worlds she met him first; an invisible spinner of words like nothing she had ever encountered. She was entranced by his tales of heroes, enthralled by his dark hints of adventures in worlds new to her; she wanted badly to hear that voice and see that imagined face first-hand.
So she followed his trail of words and stories, back to his home in the world that had brought them both to birth. She had nearly forgotten how to live in it, and when she met him she discovered he had never really learned. He was not a prince; he was the son of a toolmaker and he had worked hard all his life. But he had a thirst for adventure and a skill with the word-paths to strange worlds that surpassed her own; and he, too, had a curse that was, in some lights, a blessing. He had been born with one skin too few, so that he could feel every breath of story and intent around him. It was how and why he had learned to travel the lines of words and thought; in his own world he had to go about in armour, so that no one ever saw his face.
But she still had her gift; and she wanted to see him. She had the gift of charm, too; so when she told him she would be his skin, that the world would never hurt him again, he believed her. And so they were married.
Oh yes, there's more to the story. Perhaps one day I'll feel like telling it. But just for today - although even as I write, it's not today any longer - they lived happily ever after. Because now, after nineteen years, my darlings, I know what it was I really wanted.
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Love you.
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:)
I'm not as talkative as in the old days but I do keep an eye on you, take care. :)
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**hugs**
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It's still a good story.