Only Ashleigh from Tales of the Navel: The Shadow Forest decided to drop in...here's her story about that night...
It was a Mug for a Copper Night at the Sulking Lily. The bard wasn’t entirely sure what that meant. This was a new world with new rules, not to mention a new pub. All this waited for her behind the latest Door she’d opened. The price of admission had been her name.
No matter. Bard was a title suitable for her skills. The lute’s strings felt familar beneath her fingers, eager to pick out a tune.
It was also a Monday night, whatever that mean. Crowds of people began to mill into the Sulking Lily, dressed in open leather jerkins, no, jackets, they were called jackets, fastened with zippers and buttons.
This brought back a memory of a boy with multicoloured eyes. She couldn’t recall his names, but she smiled at the thought of his stories. How she loved to hear him relate this visions he saw in a pool, trying to find words to suit the places and people acting out their little dramas within them. One vision had been of a man who was never meant to be a man. Raised in a land of ladies, reared in a garden of beautiful boys, plucked in their youth for the pleasure of a mistress, he’d run away and grown up.
“He wore a black leather jacket like I’d never seen before.” The boy had drawn a hand down his middress, over his own velvet vest which was so different than the garmet he described. “It was fasted with a silver zipper that could part the leather on either side, revealing his white shirt in a single motion.” A sad smile played about his lips. “Nobody wore anything like that in the gardens. He was so proud to find it, to put on something which became a badge of freedom from what he’d been.”
Many a person wore such a jacket in this pub, or a shirt, or other covering featuring the fabulous zipper. The bard took a moment to marvel at the gleaming metal fastening in the dim light. Much as she enjoyed the boy’s stories, she’d never been sure how true they were.
“Anything was possible in Omphalos.” Sorrow had pinched the smooth flesh between the boy’s eyebrows. “It’s where you’ll find the center of all things bizarre.”
“This is Omphalos.” She’d gestured to the tiny cottages dotting the valley below. They’d been at the top of the hill where so few dared to climb. “The most bizarre creature we have there is you.” She pointed an accusatory finger at him, ignoring the stab of envy which accompanied it. Unlike Map, she had no desire to change their fey, strange companion. “The most impossible things are what you see in those visions of yours, Christopher.”
Ah, Christopher, the boy she and Map found, wandering the nearby woods of Omphalos as if caught in a dream. They’d brought him back to their lonely village, filled with halfling misfits, part human, part…something else. Most humans would say they were part monster. These misfits comforted each other, creating a home in Omphalos, hiding in the shadow of the hill.
No one dared to go too close to the hill. It was a place of strange happenings, flashes of magic, where people disappeared.
Christopher had been strange enough to go there of his own free will. She had been strange enough to follow him, hoping to see the dancing lights materialize over the hill, or the visions swimming in the pool.
Nothing like that ever happened. Not to her. Not that close to Omphalos. It wasn’t the only Omphalos, though. There were others out there, beyond the Door. Beyond every Door.
This place wasn’t one of them where the bard found herself facing a crowd of people with zippers, all gazing back at her with expectant eyes. Omphalos lingered in her heart and mind, though. She could almost see it, gleaming in everyone’s pupils.
She began to strum a tune, fumbling for the words:
“What lies beyond the Door?
What can you see between the trees?
Ashleigh!
Omphalos here, Omphalos there
A center of weirdness everywhere
Ashleigh!”
Simple words, yet the name came back to her as the crowds tapped their toes, humming along with her. Yes, Ashleigh was her name. She tasted it with all the passion of a lost love, someone she’d found once more.
“Hearth and home beckon thee
Map, Christopher, stranger children that you’ll ever be
Ashleigh!
Compelled to open every Door
Following the Forest path every more
Ashleigh!”
Tears gathered, hot and tight within her eyes. Yes, Ashleigh was the bard’s name. It wasn’t the only name she’d ever used, nor was Ashleigh the only person she’d ever been. She’d sacrificed much, though, to become Ashleigh, walking away from so many people for the sake of this identity.
Map’s round brown face, hiding its monstrous green beauty behind a human mask floated in her memories. Map would never understand why she’d abandoned hearth and home, the exquisite children they’d found in the Shadow Forest. Ah, all such things were transitory. She’d left more than one home behind to change into someone else, someone she wanted to be. She was like Christopher in this, only instead of chasing visions, she was opening Doors. Unlike Christopher, she knew exactly who she wished to be, even if Ashleigh had to keep chasing Ashleigh. She lost herself a lot. Worse, she had to leave Map, Christopher, Leiwell, Danyel, and Tayel behind along with her past selves.
“Hearth and home tempt you
Waiting with a warmth that’s true
Ashleigh!
You walk away to open another Door
Searching, seeking forever more
Ashleigh!”
Other people were crying, too. Ashleigh smiled and strummed, even as the tears streaked down her face. No matter how different a world was or how exotic its inhabitants, someone always cried with her. Someone caught the sorrow laced in the words and the melody of the song, even if it was deeply personal.
Ashleigh was never alone. Even in a world filled with strangers with zippers, she was not alone.
“Always finding another place
Seeking your heart in another face
Ashleigh!”
Omphalos waits beyond many a Door
Those you’ve loved, lost, and more
Ashleigh!”
It wasn’t that great a song. None of her compositions were, yet it came from her heart and she’d put her passion, her journey into each line.
Applause rang in her ears, clapping coming from all sides. Ashleigh Beyond the Door put aside her lute and took a bow.
Yes, she was Ashleigh Beyond the Door, walking between words in the Shadow Forest, seeking the portals to different places. Perhaps she’d stay in this one for a while. Get to know her listeners.
Or maybe it was better to simply have an ale, listen to the people talk, and move on. Sooner or later she always moved on, seeking the next Door.
A weathered woman in a leather jacket gazed at her with heavily-lidded eyes, some of Map’s weary wisdom gleaming within them. It would be so easy to go to her table, to start a conversation with her. Maybe she’d end up lying in that woman’s arms, taking what comfort she could from their embrace. Only she might have to leave part of herself here if she did, just like she had with Map.
Best to not to linger. She’d already shared her songs with this receptive audience. Best not to give them anything else. They might cling to it and she might end up missing whatever she left. Or whomever.
Ashleigh sighed, trying to banish the memory of small faces too like her own, or green eyes peeking behind a raven lock of hair.
Danyel, Tayel, and Leiwell weren’t her sons any more than Christopher had been. There was no point in feeling guilty over leaving them.
Perhaps she’d have a pint before she left. It might wash that nasty taste of guilt out of her throat.
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