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Turn Away from the Trickster; [Do Not Reply] [Short Story: Revelations]
Topic Started: Sat Mar 7, 2015 3:57 am (229 Views)
Alasie
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That night, Caoimhe dreamed of ripping them off. It was bloodless. They'd pop off easily and she'd cast them to the ground, where they'd turn to dust. The Fox God laughed at her and she jolted awake.

She threw what little remained of her covers aside and took a deep breath. Her god's red fur, redder than any red that could ever exist, still burned her. Caoimhe got up, rubbing the stars out of her eyes. Her legs carried her to the washroom. She picked up the scissors on the vanity stand and stared herself down in the mirror. Caoimhe held her ears pinned back always. It made them less noticeable, less vulgar. Didn't stop anything, though. She relaxed them, letting them sit on top of her head, and grabbed one with her free hand.

Caoimhe shut her eyes as tight as she could, bit her sleeve, her scissor-wielding hand was trembling, she put the base of her left ear between the scissor blades--

Her makeshift gag was useless. The howl of pain could be heard across the whole house. Had Caoimhe not been preoccupied, she could've sworn that somewhere in the distance, maybe in her faulty imagination, the Fox God was still laughing at her.

More pressing: she hadn't actually managed to cut her ear off. Not all the way. The pain was too much. All of her panic and impulsiveness deflated when faced with the very real pain of going through with it, and she couldn't imagine repeating the process on her second ear.

And now she felt warm liquid bubbling from her half-cut-off ear. Caoimhe sucked in a breath, put a hand over her mouth and nose. Don't open your eyes. She pretended it was water trickling down the side of her face, dripping onto her shoulder and lap, getting everywhere-- and she had to breathe now, and the smell of blood hit her like a ton of bricks, and she dry heaved and tears squeezed from her eyes and she tried to avoid looking at it no matter what. It got so bad that she dropped her scissors and put her hand against it to try to stem the flow, thoughts racing all the while. Why the hell did you do this, why are you so stupid, what was this going to accomplish, do you just want attention, are you going to bleed out and die now, maybe that wouldn't be the worst thing to happen, it wasn't like anyone would miss you--

"Stop, stop, stop! I'm sorry, Fox! Whatever I did to get your attention, I didn't mean it!"

The door creaked open. Caoimhe turned her head and opened her eyes, fighting her urge to look down at the mess she'd made. Her mother, jackrabbit ears tied beneath a bonnet, peeked in but didn't look at her. She set a first-aid kit on the floor. "I just thought it might be a good idea to move the first-aid supplies to the washroom," she told some unknown person in the hallway before leaving.

That broke Caoimhe. She cried for several reasons. Self-pity and self-hatred of course, but also because of the look on her mother's face just then: worried sick, exhausted and frustrated. It had been so long since Caoimhe last had a conversation that she couldn't tell if her mother was still struggling to reconcile her religious beliefs with her concern, or if her mother was simply exhausted having a Trickster as a daughter.

She got up to get some bandage, but made the mistake of glancing at the mirror. The entire left side of her face and body was splattered with blood. Caoimhe wavered, caught herself on the top of the vanity. Kept her hands on the wall as she moved to the first aid kit. Wasn't sure if she was lightheaded because of blood loss or her squeamishness. A few feet felt like a mile. Caoimhe dropped to her knees, letting her side rest limp against the wall. Her fingers felt tingly as she fumbled to open the kit to find some gauze and bandage.

"You got me, Fox God. Look at me now." She wiped herself off and wrapped slowly, deliberately. "Maybe now that I'm not any fun anymore you'll go torture someone else." A weak laugh escaped her lips. The finished bandage was wrapped under her chin and over the top of her head, securing her injured ear tightly to her skull. Caoimhe still felt dreadfully light-headed, so she opted to stay in this spot for a while longer. "But you know what, you bastard? There's no other way to go from here but up. I'm gonna work, and I'm gonna have fun, and you won't get to laugh at me anymore."

She didn't believe her own words at all, but just saying them helped her pretend.



"I'm going to work," Caoimhe told her family all sitting at the table having a meal together. As always, they didn't respond or even look in her direction.

The streets of Fuaradh never changed by the day. Caoimhe passed the antlered preacher shouting from beneath the great statue of the Elk God. No audience today, but he changed his topic when she drew near. "You must always turn away from the tricksters, the thieves, the liars and schemers! They are powerless unless you allow them to worm their way into your heart! Stand proud like the stately Elk God." She blocked him out of her mind.

Caoimhe passed the trapper and the spice merchant near the shores of the Hooked River. Before she turned fifteen, she'd greet them every day. Perhaps it was her stubbornness or merely a desperate need to cling to her life before Fox claimed her as its plaything, but Caoimhe still tried to greet them. Even after a month, even knowing they would never say anything back, she tried to greet them. Like always, they didn't even look her way.

Near her turn-off to work she spotted a figure coming down from the road leading up to the hills. The girl looked half-starved, dirty, and wore a ragged cloak to hide whatever was giving her a humpback. Caoimhe squinted and realization dawned on her face. "Moema! So you're an adult now, huh? Wow, looks like you did a terrible job surviving."

Moema glared daggers at Caoimhe. Even though she was currently speaking to her old bully, Caoimhe's heart jumped when their eyes met. She couldn't remember the last time someone looked at her. "So what god do you serve now? Something faultless like elk or mountain lion, I bet. You're so popular I doubt you'd get picked by anything less--" She cut herself off when she noticed Moema was on the verge of tears. Two wings unfurled from under her cloak. Iridescent black wings. "...Raven?"

"My life is over," Moema sobbed.

Ravens were tricksters, just like foxes, rats, snakes and stoats. Society was "kind" to the servants of the tricksters; it didn't exile or execute them on the spot. Instead, all tricksters were subject to a communication taboo. Regarding them directly was a sin to the venerable beast-gods. No exceptions.

"Don't be a weakling like that!" Caoimhe said, cocking her hips and putting one hand on her waist, tilting her chin up so her jawline was parallel to the ground. "Sure, your god is going to taunt and torture you for the rest of your life, but at least you're not dead or Unchosen. I've been handling it just fine. Come on now, what happened to the asshole Moema I know?"

"You don't understand, Caoimhe! All my friends are going to stop talking to me!"

"And your family, and your coworkers, and the people at church, and your teachers. That is, if you even stay in school or keep going to church..." Caoimhe hadn't.

Moema looked horrified. "W-Will you be my friend? We're both Tricksters. Maybe we could find the other Tricksters and all be friends with each other--"

"Nope."

"What? Why?"

"No exceptions to the taboo. Dunno how religious you are, but right now you're technically violating it by talking to me. I am too, but I don't give Rat's ass about it. Fox can turn me into a blade of grass when I die for all I care." The were-raven's response was interesting to Caoimhe: a conflicted, guilty stare. Then she took her eyes off Caoimhe and started walking past her as if she didn't exist. "Come back to me when you've lost your faith in society! I'll talk to you. Maybe not be your friend, but I'll talk to you."

Moema didn't deserve it, but Caoimhe was being selfish. She continued to work with a smile on her face, content with the knowledge that she actually spoke to a person. It wasn't a good conversation or anything, but Caoimhe would take anything she could get.

She reached the horse pastures, stables and pens that flanked the messenger building. Her boss was Faltban, a scruffy old man with wisps of tannish-white hair and two long curling horns that marked him as a servant of the Bighorn Sheep God. "Sorry I'm late! I actually had a conversation with someone!"

Faltban turned to the stable hand next to him and said, "I don't ever want to know why my employees are late. They should just get to work."

"Will do, Falt," Caoimhe giggled and rushed past him toward the tack shed where her coworkers were already hitching up the draft horses. Even though Falt was crotchety and impatient, he was also the nicest person to her. A lot of Tricksters were unemployed, had horrible job prospects or resorted to crime, but Faltban didn't fire her when she came back from her coming-of-age. He just adapted to the taboo, and did so in a way that proved effective. Caoimhe felt like he remembered she existed while still not violating the taboo and endangering himself.

Caoimhe gave a blanket greeting to her coworkers in the tack shed and then greeted each of the horses by name. The people who worked at the messenger and delivery area of the town of Fuaradh were a wide variety of ages and specialties. Some of the younger ones, like Caoimhe, were doing this so they could get into a similar career, this career, or just liked horses and needed to make some extra money for their families. Caoimhe wasn't sure how her life would or should pan out because of being chosen by Fox, but she did know that horses were too enlightened to be subject to the taboo. They looked at her, let her pet them, and she talked to them all the time. They'd surely talk back if they could.

"Oh no! Why are you wearing that bandage?"

Caoimhe jumped and turned her shocked face over her shoulder. Disappointing: it was Riona, bobcat ears drooping as she pointed out the bandage wrapped around a fellow coworker's hand. The boy brushed off his injury like it was nothing.

"I just worry. You guys are my friends, all of you. I hate to see anyone hurting."

Trying to focus on harnessing the horse Padraic, Caoimhe pushed the exchange out of her head as quickly as possible, shoulders tensed and head ducked.

Beside that, work proceeded normally. People always asked Caoimhe to do things by speaking in the passive voice -- certain tasks "needing to get done" and the like. It toed the line as far as the communication taboo went, but Caoimhe enjoyed feeling like she had a tangible presence. She imagined they were speaking to her in code.

One of of the older drivers was absent today, so Riona -- a sixteen-year-old -- was picked to drive Padraic and Riordan's wagon and make deliveries across the southern villages. "I'm going to need help offloading," she said. "Someone who isn't too busy and can spare coming with me."

Caoimhe looked around. It took her a second to realize that the only person she could be talking about was her. "Thank you!"

Riona smiled at the ground and climbed onto the driver's bench. Caoimhe joined her. The were-bobcat was, above all, very casual with the lines in her hands. She drove sitting down, one boot propped against the lower rail in front of the seat. Some teamsters commanded their horses with an authoritative voice, but Riona spoke to them like old friends.

It wasn't until they were plodding down the street that Caoimhe started feeling self-conscious, like this might have been a bad idea. She wasn't a teamster. Before coming of age she was taught how to drive horses, but was still too young to do it without supervision. Now that she was a were-fox... well, no one would want their mail delivered to them by a Trickster. They'd accuse her of tampering with it. Besides that, she had no idea what to do during the drive. It wasn't like she could make small talk with Riona, and she'd look odd talking to the horses like she usually did.

"Step easy, boys. Need someone else to take over while I check something out back." Riona wrapped the lines around the bar and then climbed over the back while the wagon was still rolling.

Caoimhe stared in baffled silence, looked back at Riona climbing around in the wagon like some furry-footed bobcat, and then what she said finally hit her. The were-fox took the lines in her hands and drove. "I-it's just me, boys. Remember my voice? I used to drive you two all the time." She laughed nervously. It was the first time in months she'd been allowed to drive. Some people got their kicks by singing or dancing or drawing pictures, but for Caoimhe this was all she needed to be happy. Just her, a rickety wagon, the open air, and a couple of draft horses.

Riona took a really long time "checking something out back," letting Caoimhe get lost chatting with the horses. And when she took her seat again and Caoimhe tried to give back the lines, she just leaned back, crossed her arms, and commented on how beautiful a day it was with a big fanged smile on her face. Caoimhe muttered a surprised thanks and kept driving.

"Our first stop is coming up," Riona said. "I fibbed, boys. I'm gonna be the one offloading."

The recipient of the first delivery was an old lady with sparrow wings. She greeted Riona happily but eyed the driver's bench -- and the grey fox tail sitting lazily across it. Not the person attached to the tail, though. "Does your driver handle the mail at all?"

"Not at all, ma'am. Just the horses."

"Good."

The deliveries continued in that same way, all without a hitch. People seemed content with the idea of Caoimhe being a teamster so long as she wasn't the one actually handling the mail. Riona made a purring laugh after the third delivery netted them both a sizable tip. "I like this setup, boys! Faltban ought to know how well this is going."

The were-fox shifted her weight in her seat, nervously wrapping her fluffy tail around her thigh. They continued further south, into the countryside. Riona pointed out a herd of over a thousand bison grazing on the foothills in the distance: a spectacular sight for sure.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Caoimhe blurted out. Silence. She regretted saying that, or at least using a vaguely combative tone. "I-- I just hope you don't pity me. Pity is the last thing I need. I mean, I do appreciate you being nice to me, though. I just don't know what to do about it."

She made the mistake of looking at Riona when she was talking to her. The were-bobcat turned her whole body and locked eyes with Caoimhe. Those bright blue eyes with oval-shaped pupils were looking at her, Caoimhe, specifically, as a person, and in doing so completely acknowledged that she was tangible and maybe even not as crazy or evil or manipulative as Bruachag Crobh society desperately wanted her to be.

Startled, Caoimhe turned away so abruptly that she almost slipped off the wagon.

"Padraic, has anyone ever overreacted to you making eye contact with them?" Riona said, laughter in her voice. "I'm just teasing, you don't have to answer. Not that I understand horse-language, anyway." This time it was Caoimhe that stared anywhere but at the person riding with her. I don't know if I can handle being looked at anymore in a single day! "But here's the thing, Padraic. I've known you a long time. You're a good person, a hard worker. You deserve to be treated with basic decency. This whole situation is ridiculous, it's fundamentalism gone wild, and it's not even protecting anyone. And you know damn well who the hell I'm actually talking to, Padraic. Who I've been bending over backwards trying to talk to for gods know how long! How do you become friends with someone you can't even communicate with?"

There was no small measure of frustration in that. Like her mother setting out the first-aid kit and Faltban talking to her without really talking to her, the communication taboo affected everyone, not just Caoimhe or other Tricksters.

"It doesn't have to be like this," Riona said. "There has to be something we can do."

Such a simple comment, but it gave Caoimhe pause. She'd never thought of it like that before. Adapt or die, quite literally -- those were the only two options she thought she had. Not true. She didn't have to be treated like this. "People outside the Crobh don't believe in the beast-gods, right? So there would be no taboo."

Riona thought about it, then nodded. "You'd make more money as a teamst-- ugh, sorry Bobcat, if you even care. I mean, boys, teamsters make more money than stable hands. If someone wanted to get out of Bruachag Crobh, they could save up some money, buy an old team and wagon from Faltban and then drive up the northern pass. Then they'd be free. And Faltban gives discounts to good employees."

Caoimhe couldn't believe it. There was light at the end of the tunnel after all, or at least a goal to work toward. "That's brilliant! I-- I wish I could hug you!" Considering how she'd reacted to mere looks today, she admitted to herself that leaving it a wish was for the best.

The were-bobcat smiled, but their conversation was interrupted by their final delivery. Their recipient was sitting out on the rocking chair on his porch, gazing at the Hooked River. He was middle-aged, but had shoulder-length white hair with smooth feathers mixed in. Caoimhe spent the whole delivery mortified that he might have spied them conversing. Hard to tell with eagles and their superb vision. Riona spent the first fifteen minutes of the drive home staring at the sky, deep in thought. Finally: "Someone leaving the Crobh ought to be good at Common, too. And, hmm... maybe fighting? I heard the outside world is in constant violence. Or maybe they'd get better at fighting with firsthand experience."

"I quit school, so I can't master Common. And I don't know the first thing about fighting." Three years ago, Caoimhe picked a fight with Moema's little gang of sycophants. They took turns dunking her in the Hooked River until the elk preacher broke it up. It wasn't really a fight. The worst part was her fantasizing back then about having some kind of huge, powerful beast form she could use after coming-of-age to punish Moema. She'd turn into a bison that could punch a hole in a brick wall, or a mountain lion that could leap 40 feet. Fox form was about the same size as Caoimhe, a little faster, but not stronger. No super-strength, super-toughness, venom, big claws, antlers or horns, nothing. Useless. Caoimhe wanted to blame the Fox God for all her troubles, but she knew deep down that wasn't all true.

Having noticed Caoimhe zoning out, Riona gave her a little tap on the shoulder that made her jump. Flushing red, the were-fox focused on Riona's bow-tied neckcloth instead of her eyes. She couldn't remember the last time someone touched her. "What's Bobcat gonna do to you if you keep up like this?!"

"Probably nothing? Don't worry about me. As far as gods go, Bobcat's not nearly as... picky as Elk or Wolf. Assuming the taboo was even the gods' idea in the first place."

Caoimhe breathed a sigh. "Then keep it up for me, at least? I don't have any respect for the gods, but I don't want to drag a good person into blasphemy. Just in case the preachers are right after all. It'd be awful if the gods punished you for something I could've stopped."

The were-bobcat turned her gaze forward. Troubled, clearly wanted to say something more, but honored Caoimhe's request anyway.

They chatted to the horses all the way back.



"I'm home." No reply.

Caoimhe spied bloody towels in the laundry and all her memories of the morning came flooding back. At the same time, she felt an overwhelming urge to recount the good things about today. Without anyone to tell her story to, the were-fox plopped into her bed and rummaged through the nightstand nearby, tail swishing from side to side. Legs crossed, she cracked open her leather-bound journal and propped her pencil awkwardly in her left hand. She began to write, leaving out the unfortunate details of her morning and replacing them with only good memories. She couldn't spell all the words she wanted to say, but that was okay -- a journal wouldn't judge her or hand out a failing grade.

When her hand hurt from writing so much, she bounced out of bed to check out the washroom. At first she just peeked in, afraid of the possibility of seeing so much blood. Lucky: it was all scrubbed clean. The scissors were gone, too. Caoimhe sat in front of the vanity and wondered about what her ear looked like now. Once she was living outside Bruachag, she could tell people she got into a knife fight or ripped out an ear piercing, maybe. The truth was still a bit sore in her memory.

Cleaned up and ready for bed, Caoimhe lit a lantern and poked through some of her old things. She returned to her bed with a thick book titled, in her native language, "Imythessian Common: Basic Vocabulary and Grammar." The binding was falling apart and some of the pages were creased or stained, but it was still legible. A good start. Caoimhe squinted at the text, sounded out words, and lost track of time.
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