Ingress of the House of Arch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smallestopener) wrote2010-05-09 12:38 am
smallestopener) wrote2010-05-09 12:38 am
Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.
Ingress had a brilliant birthday. She’s eleven. Eleven is nearly grown up! It’s also the year when children in the stories she’s read come into their own. Adventures begin, schooling starts, worlds are saved… she can hardly wait to see what will happen next.
Her party earlier was such fun. Door was almost nice to Puck; Ingress had worried a little about that after she invited him. But he was very nice and charming, and Tom was nice, too, and Puck helped Ingress steal lots of roses off the cake while Havelock talked to Tom and Door, and it was brilliant.
She ate far too much icing sugar, but Tom had the peppermint potion waiting for her when the party was over. She feels much better now. And she’s eleven!
It sounds so good in her head. Eleven, eleven, eleven.
She should have asked Mary to stay the night with her, she thinks, as she tosses and turns. She’s never going to fall asleep, even with staying up past her bedtime. Tom and Door insisted she go to bed after she started yawning. They can be so silly sometimes.
She tosses one more time, and she thinks, again, how impossible it will be to go to sleep tonight. Her eyelids flutter and close. It is not long before she’s deep in dreams.
Her party earlier was such fun. Door was almost nice to Puck; Ingress had worried a little about that after she invited him. But he was very nice and charming, and Tom was nice, too, and Puck helped Ingress steal lots of roses off the cake while Havelock talked to Tom and Door, and it was brilliant.
She ate far too much icing sugar, but Tom had the peppermint potion waiting for her when the party was over. She feels much better now. And she’s eleven!
It sounds so good in her head. Eleven, eleven, eleven.
She should have asked Mary to stay the night with her, she thinks, as she tosses and turns. She’s never going to fall asleep, even with staying up past her bedtime. Tom and Door insisted she go to bed after she started yawning. They can be so silly sometimes.
She tosses one more time, and she thinks, again, how impossible it will be to go to sleep tonight. Her eyelids flutter and close. It is not long before she’s deep in dreams.
Re: Not all is as it seems
Ingress watches the flames. She thinks she can see a turtle within, deep in the heart of the fire.
"And I am sitting down and having a chat with you."
Re: Not all is as it seems
"La cobija de los pobres. I am the shelter of the poor."
Re: Not all is as it seems
"People fall through the cracks," she says. "Your hands move very quickly."
Re: Not all is as it seems
(This is the hand of a criminal.)
"Do you know the answer to the riddle?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
When she looks up, her face is closed, wary.
"You're not the Sphinx, are you?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
It's The Sun.
"I told you before. I'm Rosie. Rosie Real."
Re: Not all is as it seems
She laughs at her joke.
"I'm Ingress. I haven't a last name."
Re: Not all is as it seems
"Careful," she says. "Be careful in the woods. Never lie--but watch what you give away. They'll take whatever you're willing to give away. Your name, your face... your heart."
The good humor has drained out of her; the fire feels colder now, for her. She touches the cards. The World. "The world is a ball and we are the foundation." The Sun. "We are the shelter of the poor."
"Do you understand?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
She shivers. The shadows are cold, too.
"I think so?"
The world is a ball, wide and vast.
Re: Not all is as it seems
The woman looks up at the shadows; they've gathered again, pressing close against the fire light, and in the reddish glow her eyes are distant. "They're not so bad, you know."
"They'll always come back. And they don't always go when you tell them to. They'll take all they can, and they think it's owed them."
"But there are more dangerous things."
Re: Not all is as it seems
...a tall man shape and a short one, blood spraying over the roses, a black-eyed angel's face twisted in fury, knitting needles clacking coldly in the corner...
"Like what?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
Now she stands. "When I give the word we charge, understand?" She shrugs out of the jacket; it's just a white fleece hoodie (http://ofthatantet.livejournal.com/), a plastic daisy dangling from the zip. Under it her arms are bare. There's a bronze armband gleaming on one powerful bicep; letters scroll (http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/83075312/14543988) across it.
"You'd better take this. It's a tradition."
Re: Not all is as it seems
"I need my slingshot."
She pulls it from the pocket.
She's ready.
Re: Not all is as it seems
They're seated in the playroom; she's wearing a denim dress and her hair is loose and wavy, her face like less war-like. Younger still. Nimble fingers wind ribbons through Ingress's hair; interlacing blue and gold. "You look good," she says finally, giggling a little. "Girl you look good," saying it the way her mother does.
And then the words are there (http://ofthatantet.livejournal.com/49800.html?thread=902024#t902024), as they never seem to be when she's awake.
"Being a girl," she says, looking down, "it's like anything else. You come correct or you've already lost. You have to wake up every day ready to fight. Because they will make you fight. Sometimes they will." She raises her eyes, Eddie (Dean) Toren's eyes, to meet Ingress's.
"You'll fight. You'll bleed."
"But you'll win." She takes a brand from the campfire and holds it up like a torch; like a blade.
She turns back to the shadows, and her voice is thunder. "For 'Riza!" she shouts. "For Chloe and the White!"
Re: Not all is as it seems
She's no longer cold.
"For Valdemar!"
They charge the darkness, young and fearless.