As the narrator assigned to this individual’s experiences, I feel it necessary to apologize for what you had read earlier. It is rare that anyone is afforded a glimpse into the mind of somebody like Lilwen Dee-Ellis. Unfortunately, for the past few days she has not been in her soundest mind. This time will be different. I will write to you for the second time with exactness what the mistress Dee-Ellis is thinking and experiencing. There will be no dramatics. No poetry nor vagueness except where it accurately depicts what she is experiencing. It will be in strict, rigid chronological order. It will be deeply personal.
-
Lilwen was shaking in the cold cave as she watched Caelfind submerge herself in the water. She was staring at the glowing insects flying around the water. To her, they looked similar enough to the bugs she knew she had been hallucinating for most of the week. It struck her as odd that they were glowing, reflecting light off the water and walls of the cave. This was not something she thought her mind could make up.
Her somewhat salty mindset cleared up though, as they neared the pond, and she actually took the time to focus on what she was seeing... her eyes widening at the fireflies and the water. "... I would say this really IS a nice place to bring us, actually." She vaguely recalled reverse queen of wands having said something to the effect in a sarcastic manner.
When Maeve spoke, Lilwen quickly turned around and looked at her, noticing that she was looking at the glowflies as well.
"Ye can see those? Huh." Lilwen curiously remarked. Surely a disconcerting comment, for some of the other students.
"Haah... Well, we're almost there, no need to be in anykind of hurry just yet..." She said, even as she eyed around for where this 'blood of the witch' would be. She was, infact, quite excited to risk life and soul for the sake of the power that makes dreams and fantasy come true. And a bath. She hoped the pond wouldn't mind.
As if motivated by the irony of the cosmos, as soon as Maeve said 'hurry', Lilwen quickly jerked into action. She was stumbling towards Mairead, guided by nose towards the awful; magical concoction. The headiness of it was triggering starved neural pathways. She consciously knew it would not be alcohol, but the adjacency was motivating her against her better judgement. She took the goblet from Mairead in both hands, and took one gulp. She was leaning her head back and about to take another, before Mairead snatched the goblet out of her hands with such deftness that not even a drop left the receptacle.
Mairead began making gestures with her free hand towards the pond, worried that Tatts would get distracted by the drink instead of completing the ceremony. She stumbled backwards towards it, but fortunately this was deliberate. Completely without fear, she grabbed her nose with her left hand and fell backwards into the pond.
As she fell through the stagnant air, she thought.
C'mon, Tatts. There'll be nothin' in ye noggin ye haven' already witnessed. This 'ere will be simple. Ye prepared for anythin'.
She saw Mairead, Maeve and the other students watching. Dark eyes inside dimly lit faces. Caelfind was watching from the sidelines, soaking wet. Lilwen closed her eyes. Cool wetness touched her back. The sound of rushing water filled her ears. The crashing displacement of the stuff enveloped her as the others watched it splash around her. Lilwen felt herself sink, the blue light still touching her eyelids. She expected to feel stone scrape against her back soon. Alas, no stone. Instead, there was only the cold. The blue light on her eyelids was becoming weaker. It was now far enough away that she was confident no light was reaching her eyes.
This is erm... Deeper... than it looked.
Lilwen was still sinking. She was meant to be dreaming now, or something of the like. Something was wrong. She tried to orient herself upright; touch the bottom of the pond with her feet and bounce her way back up. There was no floor to jump off of. Like when looking down from a tall place, fear shot up her spine. She opened her eyes.
Blackness. Eternal void. It was cold, like the pond, yet merciless. She lost control of her body. She thrashed. She looked down, up, to the sides. Blackness in every direction. There were no bubbles being produced from her mouth and nostrils. It was all empty. Lilwen began to scream.
"HELP!! SOMEONE HELP ME!! P-PLEASE!!! I-I-!!"
She was not afraid of drowning. She was not afraid that she was lost.
"I AM BEGGIN'!!! HELP MEE!!"
It was this exact nightmare. Tears began to float in globules from her tear ducts, coating her eyes and making it hard to keep them open. She
was prepared for anything.
"HELP!!!"
However, Lilwen was not prepared for nothing at all.
Her breathing had at some point become frantic and violent. She became aware of this and focused on it. Her conscious now buried deep within a primal reaction, she had began counting her breaths.
Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneight- Easily breaking a hundred a minute. Likely, it was much higher. She cradled herself in the darkness. She covered her face and tucked in her legs. Her breathing began to slow. Rationality was slowly creeping back into her.
Wait...
Something was peculiar. As she began moving her cerebral clockwork, a thought started completing itself. Her muscles loosened.
...I can breath...?
Lilwen, now calmer; though still deeply disturbed, left her protective huddle and transitioned to a more relaxed fetal position. She struggled to open her eyes again, then gawked at the empty space surrounding her. She looked carefully for any sign of... anything. A brazier, a speck in the distance. Anything at all.
There was nothing. It was now occurring to her that given the anomaly of this situation, there was only one real reason why it could be happening. This was her inner-space. A hot feeling flickered in her brain. Irritation. It swelled to fill the entirety of her head. Anger. It then snapped and lashed into her limbs, animating them.
"...rrrrrrRRRG!!! O, I GET IT!!! I 'EAR YA LOUD N' CLEAR!" Lilwen shouted with outrage, "THERE'S NOTHIN' 'ERE BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHIN' LEFT!
YE SICK FUCKKKKSSSS!!!!! I WONDER WHY 'ERES NOTHIN' TO LIGHT, AYY??!! IS IT CUZ I'M A GOOD FOR NOTHIN' NOBODY??!!"
Her frame was rigid and unhinged as she floated through the vast, unresponding emptiness.
"CUZ I DIDN' WORK HARD ENOUGH I CANNOT BE A WITCH??!! FUCK YOU!!!"
She threw her hat off her head.
"NO, I BET IT IS WORSE, ISN' IT? I BET I WAS NEVER MEANT TO BE A WITCH IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! I FUCKIN'... I TOOK MY BROTHERS CHANCE, DIDN' I??!! HE WAS GOIN' TO BE ONE OF THE ONLY MALE WITCHES EVER AND I FUCKIN' STOLE IT FROM HIM, THEN FUCKED OFF AND DRANK A
WHOLE LOTTA BOOZE!!! THIS IS MY PUNISHMENT, AYY???!!! IS THAT WHAT THIS IS???!!! FUCK!!!!!"
She kicked and screamed. There was nothing to destroy. There was no vent for her unbridled rage.
"...Now I am goin' to DIE IN A FUCKIN' POND. C#nt!"
Lilwen wanted to curse some more. Instead, she waited for an answer. The void gave none. The anger in her was reducing to a loud sizzle. Once again, it was just her irregular breath, her heart, and the sound of arrogant nothing. She looked down at her hands. In a sense, her inner-world was not empty. The only thing occupying it was her. Blurry puzzle pieces shifted around her psyche just out of reach.
She inhaled deeply, and exhaled something calm and gentle: "...Nah."
"None o' that's right, ain't it...?"
Her gaze rose above her hands. They left her vision, leaving only darkness once again. Fear was still rhythmically beating at the back of her head, but she withstood it. She let the nothingness truly surround her. She experienced it fully. Her body was screaming for her to stop. It wanted her to bring her limbs closer together. She pushed against it and stayed still.
"Why am I scared of ya, ay?" She bemused, "I been runnin' from ye my whole life. Drinkin', sleepin', doin' anythin' to pretend ya didn' exist."
She felt the darkness nod to her in approval. It was in her head, of course. Yet, wasn't all of this...? The panic in her was quieting. It turned out it was not the cold that was merciless. It was the part of her that feared it.
"Ye were always 'ere, o'course. Always watchin'. I think I felt ya strongest 'round ma..." Lilwen's mind trailed off. She gained a startling awareness of this and came to yet another realisation.
"...Who are ye, anyway? Nah..." She kept on this train of thought. "...What are ye?"
The void kept silent. Yet, now it somehow felt helpful. The silence, in its own way, was an answer. Lilwen searched her memories. She was an investigator searching for the truth. Then, she found something odd.
"...Ya
weren' always 'ere, were ya?" She said with shocked surprise.
Memories of her youth flashed before her eyes like slides in an old projector. The earlier ones were eerily... hopeful.
"Or... ye were, but I hadn' noticed ya. Ye're not real o'course, ye're an idea... or a concept or somethin'... I think ye're..."
Greed? Addiction? Despair? Insecurity...?
"...Anomie."
The one thing tying all those feelings together. Lilwen was hopeful and determined in youth. She trained hard. She wanted to be the best. At some point in her life, she became Tatts. Disillusioned, upset and hurt. She felt like nothing really mattered.
"...I wanted to be a witch, didn' I...?" She said to herself, ashamed.
Memories that had surfaced in her psychotic breaks throughout the week had began to surface once again. She started to remember it all. Her mother had not forced her to do anything. She
allowed Lilwen to train alongside her brother. She
allowed her to prove her strength against him. The tattoos that marked her skin. Lilwen dreaded them. She drank so much trying to forget they existed. Even so...
"...I consented. At some point in lil' me's life, I wanted this."
She looked at her arms and body. The ink embedded deep inside her skin. A remnant of who she once was. All on a canvas of raw, pure black.
"So, that's it, then. My inner-whatever is empty cuz I destroyed it."
Silence. That answer was not right either.
"...But it ain't, isn' it?"
Lilwen became aware of her own breathing once again.
"Why am I 'ere, ay? Well, not 'ere, but in Falbreck. It's cuz I have nothin' left, isn' it?"
Something about this question felt deeply wrong to her. Her stomach turned upside down. She recalled her anger, and that she screamed into the void.
"...Aaaa..." Lilwen marveled, "It isn'... That's what I say when I'm afraid. I'm not just addicted to liquor. I'm addicted ta bein' sorry for myself."
The presence of her question was all she really needed to know this. It meant she had doubt about it. Deep down, she knew it was not true.
"At some point I must've realised that bein' a witch wasn' all cracked up... I realised ma barely got out alive... N' that ma trained me to protect the rest o' us. I didn' want to be a witch no more..."
The emptiness once again felt lonely, but this time there was no fear. An epiphany occurred to her.
"Then this must be 'bout legacy!" Lilwen shouted. "Ma wasn' just any witch, she was
The Anti-Hedge Witch. She messed with truth n' such. That is what my tatts and psalms are always yappin' about. I always wanted to be like ma, so that is my purpose! I just hafta figure out how to light somethin'..."
Tatts looked with excitement around her. Of course, there was still nothing at all in every direction possible. That is, other than her hat, which was now spinning towards her. She took it, then stared at it, confused.
"...Can I light my clothes...? Myself...?"
For some peculiar reason, something about
setting herself on fire did not resonate with the vision of her conclusion. This, and if she was really here to continue her mother's legacy, why would she burn the clothes that represented her loyalty to Falbreck? Why would she burn her mother's hat?
"Hm... Fuck me..."
Lilwen leaned back into the abyss and put a finger on her chin. She thought quite thoroughly. Maybe there was an answer in her psalms. The most prominent of them came to mind:
She recited: "V'est li néol. Trel li néol. Néol va seda."
She repeated it in her head. I will be nothing. I am nothing. Nothing matters. It brought to mind the abyss that surrounded her. Then, she revisited what was currently with her.
"...Me clothes... Me... And... Nothin'. Is nothin' really a thing? I 'spose ma's skills were... kind o' like controllin' nothin'..."
Tatts jolted upright.
"Am I 'spose to light
nothin' on fire? How would I even... Nah, how would I even
control that? What if I light nothin' on fire and this whole place goes kaboom!"
She pondered this, then, motivated by sheer curiosity, raised her fingers pinched. Lilwen Dee-Ellis held her wrist with her other hand, ready to snap her fingers. She had no idea if this would work, but nonetheless. She closed her eyes. She started thinking about her mother. The sheer power of her abilities. The legends she had forged. The people she saved. It felt powerful. It felt like if she were to snap her fingers, it would bring birth to a glorious flame... She forcefully pressed her fingers together...
...Her fingers felt weak. How? She had literally broken her fingers four times in her life. She punched empty glass bottles for fun. They are the opposite of weak... It was not her fingers. It was her. She released the force pressing her fingers together.
"I didn' wanna become a witch for ma."
Lilwen sighed.
"Why did I wanna become a witch...?"
She recalled her training. It was rough. Brutal, even. Yet, she still did it. She sweated, bled, got bruised and beaten down. The whole circuit. Why? Why would someone subject themselves to that? It is not something someone does if they hate it...
"...That's it. I didn', did I?" Lilwen perked up, "I didn' hate it. I-I..."
She thought about the past week. Well, the parts where her psyche were intact, anyway.
"I don't have nothin' else left... This is everythin' to me. I love this. I love fightin'... I love trainin'... I love meetin' new people and bein' the best I can be. Ma didn' want me to be a witch..."
Lilwen brought her fingers back into position. This time, she did not think about her mother. She thought about herself. The years of training she endured. Her brother, that she bested thoroughly. Every broken bone, every drop of blood and every single scratch. She thought about the wyrd. She thought about the dreams of gaining otherworldly power. Lilwen thought about how she looked up to her mother. How she respected her and thought she was the awesomest in the world. She thought about how to lil' o' her the most important thing in the world was to help other people. She thought about the emptiness around her. The void that was not against her, but her weapon. A force that is malleable; that can be shaped into any weapon she wanted. A force like her. Able to wield any weapon. Able to fight any foe, should she rise to the task and give it her all. Her fists, a crack of lightning. Her breath, a soothing morning breeze. Her hair the warm sunrise that follows. Her tattoos, the lessons that guide them.
"...I did."
This time, she did not have to force herself. Her fingers simply snapped. A loud click echoed throughout the void. Anomalous, as there were no walls. A spark had come to life, radiating between her fingers. Lilwen, somewhat in shock, quickly brought her hands away from the heat. When she looked down, she was cradling a small, glowing, blue orb. It emitted a gentle light. Warmth came off of it and landed in her palms. It warmed her face. Her back to the void, it was the coldest part of her body. Even so, she knew she had to protect this flame.
As it turns out, she was nothing. She was nothing all along, and nothing really does matter.
-
Tatts unexpectedly splashed back out of the water, gasping for air. She scrambled out of it, looking like a cat that had fallen in a lake. Her hat had fallen off, so she quickly snatched it from its spot floating in the water. She stood by Caelfind's side.
There was a strange... lack.... of confusion, on Lilwen's face.