The Posts

Chapter 192: The Posts—I Have Seen….

 

            His hand, encased in the processed skin of an animal touches me, sometimes he hits me with the sculpted splinters of a dead tree, he protects me from the disc of hardened blood from a dead tree. I hate the smell of that disc, I hate the way it taunts me as it slips past me, inside me, it is something I would sooner avoid. Alas, I rarely have the chance to prevent its intrusion on me with my own powers. I need someone to do that for me. I need someone who will listen.

            He has been with me for but a twinkling of time, although for him, I assume it has been an eternity. He feels like the King of an Eternity and it seems his impact may as well crown him as such. He thinks he is my guardian, my savior, my only friend. He thinks too much. He thinks he doesn’t have to pay attention to me sometimes, he thinks he can ignore me.

            I sat quiet and lonely as they placed me on the ice this morning. I smelt the fresh, slick, pungent mix of it, felt its delicious coolness. I sat and I was lonely. He takes me with him, everywhere he goes I find where he is, and I wait for him. As I sat there, I felt lonely, sleepy, and I grew irritated watching an empty lake with a painted face. I wanted his face, his painted face.

            And what happens when he comes? I see him, I am happy. I see him in his elephantine legs and gorgeous, lush colors, his face in a painted skull like the shining back of an arrogant beetle, eyes that shine like rare stones, and blades on his feet that glint for me… for me…

            He stops and he turns around, I see that color around his body, red, red of anger, and he goes to the glass, there is someone else there, someone pale and glowing red with anger as well. I hear their voices, they are angry, there is more screaming. How could their argument be more important than I?

            I wait, patiently, lonely. I see the others, the wolves who would assault me with the pungent disc; they are swirling around like the current on a pond’s surface. I see my brother across the ice; I see that his protector is there. Mine is not. I am vulnerable. I hear them scream, I see him turn, and yell, “Encule” and he come to me. His fight is over and now we shall be together.

            “Good morning,” I tell him. I feel happy.

            There is no answer.

            Perhaps he had not heard me?

            “Good morning,” I repeat.

            An answer he still does not give. I know he heard me this time. He is angry, his heat it radiates upon me. There is much he feels he must be angry for and frustrated. He let his feelings get in the way just two nights ago, he let them assault me, he failed me. I know he feels the regret for that but that doesn’t excuse his actions.

            “You have only yourself to blame.” I say.

            Not a word…silence….

            “You shouldn’t make it worse upon yourself. It will only make things worse, stop thinking about it, whatever it is. You’re so melodramatic.”

            I feel the sting of his sculpted wood splinter hit me, sharp, a nick.

            He does have something heavy upon his mind. He is so emotional; he cannot protect me properly if he has distractions, if his world is not clear. It is not fair to me when he is like this. He is being bothered…

            Her again… I assume. The creatures lithe and slender, with painted mouths and sparkling laughs, they always take them from us. Always they are on their minds always to distract them.

            “Forget her!” I say. “She is not here.”

            “Leave me alone!” he replies. “I will not listen, you do not own me!”

            I am stunned. How could he think to say this to me of all things? What makes him think he is a larger force than I am, I who is the director of his movements, I who inspired him, guided him, coddled him when he was so much paler, smaller, angrier, lost. She hurts him constantly even when he does not realize this much. How dare he think I am more a harmful force than she?

            I do no know why I bother with him sometimes, he who does not know what I have seen. I come from the back reaches of time before his ancestors even pressed their pale skins and pale eyes onto my land.

            I lay within the embrace of a frozen pond and the men and the boys, their skins brown their hair ebony, battled on the surface. It was a rock then, or a turtle’s shell and they never smelled so bad. It was a time beautiful, and when they spilled the crimson blood from their flesh, dripped it upon me, I would awake. I would drink and I would enjoy.

            I fell silent as the ones with the pale skins and furred faces took the ice from people who first had possession of it. I was amused to see the ease in which they fell to it, and I fast ceased to mind their intrusion on me. I have seen their offspring, the first of them as they played like cubs upon me, and I saw the first evidence of what SHE could do, with her pale hair and pink eyes as she culled the cubs, fed them to her children, her revenge for ills brought upon her when she was one of them herself.

            I was there when they began to use that ball of hardened tree blood which was whittled into a disc. When the crowds began to gather and their tools of battle more refined, I was there and I winced beneath the pain just as the ones who took their stand in front of me, who were taunted for protecting their faces, who fell to the ice dripping blood that I drank and was grateful for. These are the ones who pledge their souls to me and to their brothers eternal.

            He does not appreciate that he was the first to truly listen to me, to heed me, to be blessed by me. He does no know or glean any of this and he should be made aware of it. He cannot be allowed to mistreat me so any longer. I must teach him a lesson. This is nothing new. I find that he performs better if I show him, remind him of who he should be grateful to.

            It seems however, that he forgets the lesson faster, and faster. He forgets what I have told him and what he has promised more often. He depends on himself more with each passing year and he depends more upon her and the cubs they have together.

            His female cub, her eyes they glow like his. She stroked me, giggled, and whispered to me that she was his real love, that she would always have the first spot in his heart. I whispered back to her, “Watch out for the Puck.”

            The cublet heard me, I saw her eyes widen with fear and she hugged her brother cub who told her that if she knew what was best, that she would forget what she had just heard. A boy with more than his father’s insolence. He ignores me constantly, berates me sometimes and never listens. Someday he will listen; he will know what’s best.

            I threw the disc at the cublet, the little female would feel my wrath. Alas, she had dodged it, I saw her on the floor, not where she was supposed to be. She had taken heed and taken cover. Perhaps she will know better now. Perhaps….

            As for the father, my treasure, he needs a lesson with more power in it. He has grown a thicker skin, a more arrogant brain, and he needs to know the scope and breadth of my powers. He cannot leave me just yet. He cannot leave me when it isn’t on my terms. He cannot leave under his own power.

            He must learn.

            And I will teach him.

            The lesson is not now. It will be soon… very soon…

            We are back home now, where he first listened to me, where he first acknowledged me. He had run away but he had not run from me. It is an anniversary tomorrow. He is aware of this. And I think I shall give him, an early present.