Now the Formerly Forbidden Cauldron will return to its regular schedule of Wednesday posts and Quartz's monthly outbursts, err, Secondary Characters Speak Out, beginning with one of Paula's prompts.
On January 15, 2020, P.T. Wyant posted at ptwyant.com a Wednesday Words prompt involving a winged cat, a game, and a foreign language.
This Tale of the Navel: The Shadow Forest freebie story was the result...
There were a series of moves I needed to make in the game or else the winged cat would swoop down and eat my mouse knight. I just had no idea what they were. It didn’t help that the runes and instructions for the game were in another language. Every time my mouse got devoured.
“You’re letting me win, Gabrielle,” Raphaelle scolded right before the giant feline’s mouth swallowed my small, whiskered champion. “Your lack of Direction is obvious, even in a game.”
“How can you expect me to be any other other way?” I snapped, allowing my temper to flare up, in spite of the danger. “You tie me to my own bed any time I show the slightest sign of initiative or individuality! How could I or anything I represent be anything other than prey to you and yours?”
Rafaelle recoiled, nostrils flaring in outrage. She raised one hand tipped with sharp nails, ready to slap me.
I braced myself for the blow, possibly the scratches when her nails connected with my cheek. Only the blow never came.
“Perhaps you’re right.” Rafaelle lowered her arm. “Perhaps I’ve used force against you so often, you respond to it rather than the reason behind it.”
“What reason?” Direction had never made much sense to me. It just was, yet there had to be reason behind it. Rafaelle never seemed interested in the philosophy behind the truth any more than Michael was. Only Urielle seemed concerned with deeper meanings, but she cloaked them in brief enigmas, never giving me time to dwell on them.
Mireille was the one person in my life who truly wanted to talk or discuss the meaning of anything at any length. This was why I was so hungry for her company, even if it meant sneaking outside the temple walls and risking the other Directions’ wrath.
“Oh, Gabrielle.” Rafaelle reached out to touch my hand. “Are my reasons that unclear to one destined to deliver tidings to others?”
“I am?” I felt more slow and stupid than ever. “I thought I was a failure as a Direction.”
“No!” Rafaelle reached out to grab my hand, digging her nails into my skin. “You may be young, willful, and often in need of discipline, but Heaven chose you, Gabrielle. To consider yourself a failure is to question Heaven!”
Oh, so that was it. Behind Rafaelle’s smouldering disappointment in me lay fear. Every time I made my mentor doubt my capabilities as a Direction, she found herself doubting Heaven and her own faith in the perfection of Heaven. I was the embodiment of her doubt.
“There’s always a reason for my anger, little one.” Rafaelle released my hand and lifted her own to caress my cheek. “You may not understand it, but it’s there.” She allowed her fingers to travel to the side of my head and rumple my hair. “I’m not simply trying to cow you into submission. I’m teaching you to unlock the riddle of correct behaviour.”
“The riddle of correct behaviour?” Rafaelle had never indicated there was any mystery to behaving well. I’d gotten the impression it was something perfectly obvious, but I was too slow to understand it. “How do I go about solving that?”
“By thinking about why I’m punishing you while I do it!” She curled her nail against my cheek, like a dagger. “Did you ever consider why I bind you to your own bed? It’s to give you a quiet moment with your thoughts, to consider your own actions and mine!” Trembling, she withdrew her hand from me. Rafaelle gazed at me, eyes huge and dark, raising a knuckle to her slack mouth. It was as if she were seeing me for the first time.
I looked back at her, feeling warm wetness trickle down my face, wondering if I was doing the same thing. All this time, I’d assumed she tied me up to humiliate me, to force me to submit to her. I’d never considered the possibility that she was trying to force me to think. My thoughts were the wildest, most rebellious parts of me, skipping after Mireille down paths Heavenly Directions would never go.
Would Rafaelle still tie to the bed if she realized this? Or would she do something much worse? Would she try to stop me from thinking all together?
She might. She might take away the one place where I was free to be myself. She and the other Directions might have the power to do exactly that.
This was why she could never guess my true thoughts. I’d have to create a mask honest and believable enough to wear around the other Directions, yet opaque enough to conceal my inner rebellion.
Perhaps it was turning from the Direction Heaven intended for me. Perhaps I was meant to rebel, or share my feelings of rebellion honestly.
I might never be able to leave the temple walls again if Rafaelle realized how rebellious I really was. I might no longer see Mireille.
That possibility was enough to quash any consideration of openness. The chance of being parted from Mireille was too terrible to risk.
No, I’d start building a mask and I’d learn to enjoy wearing it. I’d pour what truth into it I could and conceal the rest. It might be a useful thing to don if I was destined to take tidings to other places, like the Garden of Arachne. Concealment might protect my secret self from more than simply the other Directions. It could hide it from anyone who wanted to crush it.
I never considered the possibility that Heaven might protect me from being crushed. Nor that Rafaelle might change her mind if I expressed my own with enough conviction.
Later on, I did wonder. What would have happened, if I’d stood up to Rafaelle? Would I have been crushed? Or might I have won?
Perhaps my mouse knight would have finally eluded the winged cat, making her way to the center of the maze in the game I could never win. Perhaps Rafaelle would have finally come to respect me.
I’ll never know.
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