The story starts in the next post. Explanations, disclaimers, indices, and the like might end up in this post in the future.
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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by darkmagicwillow » Sun Jul 13, 2003 12:27 pm
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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by darkmagicwillow » Sun Jul 13, 2003 12:30 pm
Tara's stride unconsciously quickened until she was almost running as she fled the dormitory behind her, leaving boxes, books, and clothes strewn messily across the floor of her new room. She had to get away. She couldn't bear the thought of trying to make a home without Willow. It was too much, too soon. Tears blinded her eyes, but her feet guided her surely to the place where she instinctively went when she was troubled.
The hedge maze.
She had always found insight and comfort in places like this, wandering the hidden paths of the woods with her mother and doodling labyrinths on paper when she was in class. She had been so overwhelmed her first day in Sunnydale, her first time away from the uneasy familiarity of the house that had somehow ceased to be home with her mother's passing. The university had seemed too large and too full of people after the smallness of her hometown. She had wandered the campus, searching for a place where she could be herself alone, and then she had found this, almost too perfect to be believed, a real hedge maze like the ones she had only read about in books.
Tara needed to know if she had made the right choice, if leaving Willow had been the right thing to do. It felt so wrong, fleeing her heart's desire, like leaving half of herself behind, but she couldn't stay and remain herself, never knowing if what she forgot was real or if what she remembered was imaginary. The maze would tell her if she had done the right thing, for the nature of this place was choice.
The labyrinth would offer her choice after choice, rights and lefts, curved passages and straight ones, until she was lost in its embrace. If she could find her way to the center and find her way out again, then she would know that she could do the same with her life. She'd know that she could find her way out of the despair that embraced and surrounded her like an endless grey mist.
She blinked the tears from her eyes and willed the insubstantial fog of despair from her mind. She needed to see clearly. At the entrance, she paused a moment to take a deep breath. She let it go shakily, then stepped across the threshold.
The first choice was always simple: right or left.
She went left.
Right.
Left.
Left again.
Was she taking too many lefts? She'd read once that you should thread a maze by always making the same choice of direction at every intersection. To her, that idea seemed to miss to the point. Why go in at all if every choice you made was the same?
Left.
Right.
Four choices of direction this time. She went straight ahead, uncertain where her path was taking her but determined to follow it nonetheless.
Left.
A long curving passage that seemed to take her back to where she had come from, but different somehow. It felt like it wasn't the maze that had changed, but herself: she was reversed, her left become right, her past become future.
Right.
Right again.
Left.
As she neared the center, the labyrinth grew strange, the hedges taller and thicker than they'd appeared from the outside, their ancient brambles tangled and thorny. Resembling the undergrowth of the primeval forest, these brambles presented an impenetrable barrier, too thick to push through and too tall to climb over. Even as she recognized the strangeness, a deep sense of familiarity welled up within her heart. She had been here before.
Left.
Left again.
Right.
Left.
Tangled brambles turned to tall, old walls of irregular stones, their edges worn smooth and the mortar between them brittle and crumbling with age. Any chance of cheating the maze was gone. There was only the path that had been followed behind and choices to make ahead.
Right.
Right again.
A third right.
Left.
A footbridge of white marble, its stones marred with age but enduring nonetheless, crossed a small stream. As she crossed the stream, a small voice in her head reminded her that no stream flowed into or out of the hedge maze, but a deeper intuition within her told her that she was on the correct path, that this strangeness was to be expected.
She emerged from the hedge maze into a garden, beautiful but ancient beyond comprehension. Ruins, stone arches and fragments of walls like the ones she'd seen in pictures of Greece and Rome, were dotted across the landscape. Above, the sun was huge, red and bloated with age.
"Welcome, daughter," the grey-robed man read from the book bound to his arm before looking up at her, his eyes hidden beneath the fringe of his hood.
Tara embraced the man who wasn't a man but who somehow was her father. He had never explained his relationship with her mother, and only in this place, the place that was at the center of all mazes, the garden where every person walked its paths all the days of their lives without ever seeing them, had she ever seen him. She shared a tiny fragment of her father's gift which allowed her to find her way through any labyrinth to the garden.
"I am sorry." His left arm wrapped around her awkwardly. He smelled faintly of ancient books as he embraced her.
Tara stepped back and looked up into her father's pale face as she asked, "Did I do the right thing? Could I have made it right if I had stayed?" She didn't have to explain what had happened to him. It was all in his book, every choice that had ever been made and every choice that ever would be made.
"I am Destiny. I am what is and what must happen. I cannot tell you what might have been."
"Why does everything good have to end?"
"My sister would say that beginnings and endings are essential to make life meaningful."
"But your life won't ever end."
"I am the eldest of the Endless and I do not have a life, but when the universe comes to an end, I will close my book and pass with it.
Tara was uncertain what to make of this proclamation. Destiny rarely revealed anything about himself, and her mother's journal had told her little more than how to find him. "What do you mean?"
"I watch over the paths of others," he said, "but I have no path of my own."
"But mother ... and me?" Tara asked, a confused look on her face. "Aren't we a choice, a path?"
"The threefold goddess came to my garden, telling me that your mother had asked them to be blessed with a daughter after learning she could have no more children. I consulted my book to determine the meaning of their visit and discovered that while she and I would never touch, it was our path to have you."
"Didn't you love her?"
Destiny paused a moment to think. "She was an interesting woman," he said in measured tones, as if he knew the answer she sought but couldn't bring himself to tell her anything other than the bare truth. "I always looked forward to the days when she brought you with her to see me."
"But then she stopped bringing me here and I forgot."
"I knew you would, as I knew that you would in time discover the truth and return home to confront Nathaniel Maclay, causing him to deny that you were his daughter, and finally leading you to your mother's journal."
"How could you ... she let me believe that for all those years?"
"She believed it best if you thought yourself a normal girl."
"And am I?"
"I told you before that you were not a demon," he said. "Your father feared you, sensing that you were not his, but there's nothing for you to worry about. No child of the Endless is likely to be ordinary, but you are a unique human being, no more, no less."
"No child?" Tara asked. "Do I have any brothers or sisters?"
"I have no other children, but my brothers and sisters have had children."
"Do you love me?" Tara asked with a quaver in her voice. He had always been kind to her, considerate of her thoughts and feelings, and she had no one else now. No friends. No family. No Willow.
"I care for you deeply, my daughter," Destiny said. The tone of his voice did not change, but he placed his left arm around her shoulders. "I love all my family."
"Will I ever meet them? Your brothers and sisters." Tara asked. "I'm a bit scared of them."
"You've already visited each of them save my youngest brother in their own realms," he said, "but we can talk more of that later. For now, you are tired and hungry. Come with me." He turned toward his citadel, a massive and ageless stone structure, Romanesque in appearance, where he dwelt when he was not watching over the garden.
"How long can I stay?" Tara asked.
"You have a path to return to," he said, "but you may stay as long as you like."
Tara started to go with him, then paused, knowing there would be no more answers once she left the twisting paths of the garden. "Will I ever get her back?" she asked. Her heart pounded in her chest as she wondered if she really wanted to hear the answer to her question.
Destiny stared at her for a long moment before answering. "You will," he said before turning away.
Tara couldn't help wondering as she followed him if that had really been a tear falling down his cheek when he answered her, but the joy of his affirmation of her hopes made her forget her question almost as quickly as it had come to mind.
--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by alli1977 » Sun Jul 13, 2003 1:29 pm
by Insanity » Sun Jul 13, 2003 3:14 pm
"Nobody messes with my girl!"Tara, Bargaining
by Triscuit7 » Sun Jul 13, 2003 6:24 pm
It's posted! So here's a big for woo hoo and a dance 
of literay gratification for you.
******************
I brought marshmallows!
by allykat » Sun Jul 13, 2003 6:37 pm
by darkmagicwillow » Sun Jul 13, 2003 7:44 pm
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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by some dark thing » Sun Jul 13, 2003 8:26 pm
by russ » Sun Jul 13, 2003 8:50 pm
by Puff » Sun Jul 13, 2003 9:09 pm
by MadeinNZ » Mon Jul 14, 2003 2:38 pm
"Oh! I know this one: "Slaying entails certain sacrifices... blah blah bity blah. I'm so stuffy, give me a scone."
"It's as if you know me." -- Buffy and Giles
by TromDeGrey » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:04 pm
My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. -Erma Bombeck
by AntigoneUnbound » Mon Jul 14, 2003 7:18 pm
by cinderlust » Mon Jul 14, 2003 10:17 pm
by Stroke of Luck » Tue Jul 15, 2003 10:46 am
This is a duet, Amber! You need to sing!"- Tony
by justin » Tue Jul 15, 2003 1:48 pm
I understand, you should be with the person you l-love
I am
by darkmagicwillow » Tue Jul 15, 2003 5:43 pm
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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by Grimlock72 » Wed Jul 16, 2003 3:51 am
a new DarkMagicWillow story.... wooo && hoooo 
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"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine
by JustSkipIt » Wed Jul 16, 2003 8:00 am
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"Seek the company of those who are still seeking the truth and run away from those who think they have found it.--J.T. O'Hara
by darkmagicwillow » Fri Jul 18, 2003 8:44 am
First and foremost, I wanted comics to be taken seriously.
That didn’t mean that I wanted all comics to be serious. I wanted all kinds of comics. And I wanted them to be able to stand beside theatre, cinema, books, TV, Grand Opera, as a valid and unique way of telling stories. A fairly young medium, perhaps, in which a lot of great work was still to come, but a medium that shouldn’t be sneered at for simply existing. A medium whose name can be used as a put-down has a long way to go.
...
I wanted a world in which collections of comics existed and were routinely sold in places that other things were sold. Like bookshops.
I wanted a world in which superheroes existed, and did just fine, but in which there was also room for any other kind of comics one could imagine.
And, frankly, we’re getting there. We may not have reached that glorious shining comic-book utopia yet,
But we’re getting there. Things are different. A world in which Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan can take the Guardian Best First Novel award, is the kind of future I wanted. It’s an alternate universe...
--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by The Inward Sea » Mon Jul 21, 2003 10:45 am
by darkmagicwillow » Mon Jul 21, 2003 5:55 pm
Tara was looking forward to seeing her father again as she walked through the hedge maze. Quiet and thoughtful, he was so different from the tense, angry man her mother had allowed her to think was her father. Nathan. She had always had to choose her words carefully with him, each conversation like defusing a bomb as the slightest mistake could cause that tension to explode into hateful words and actions. Often no matter what she said, it was a mistake. If she told him the cow was too sick to milk, he'd yell at her for not taking better care of the animals, but if she didn't tell him, he'd scream at her because she was lying.
Reminding herself that she wasn't a part of that past any longer, Tara turned right at a junction where she had made a left last time. The chains of her past couldn't bind her. The farm was something she didn't have to worry about any more. Today she had another chance to better know her real father. Destiny. She wished that she had discovered her mother's journal sooner so that she could've left the farm earlier, leaving behind the house that had ceased to be a home after her mother's death, but she supposed that he would say that things happened in the only way that they could.
Following the consequences of her choice, Tara walked along a narrow passage covered with mosaics, their elaborate patterns forming a convoluted network of paths of their own on the walls of the maze. Drawn to their complexity, Tara traced a path with her finger through the labyrinth on the wall, wondering as she did so if the movements of her finger mirrored the path she walked through the maze with her feet. Shaking her head, Tara turned away from the diversion and returned to walking the labyrinth, letting instinct guide her to its center.
It was good to have family again, to have something of her own, especially after losing the family she had thought she'd had with Willow's friends in Sunnydale. But they had been just that. Willow's friends. Not hers. After her relationship with Willow ended, they had forgotten about her. Dawn was the only one of them that she had much contact with, and there she had to be the one who gave support, trying to make up for what the young girl wasn't getting from Buffy.
Lost in her thoughts, Tara suddenly found herself out of the maze in the ruddy sunlight of the garden. Her father was standing on the path before her, awaiting her arrival as he always did. Nothing ever surprised him, but today something surprised her. Her eyes widened as she saw that Destiny, eldest of the Endless, ancient and powerful beyond mortal comprehension, was carrying a picnic basket.
"You said you wanted to see where you used to visit me with your mother," Destiny said. "We'll go there today." He turned to follow a curving path paved with crushed stones deeper into the garden. The edges of the walkway were marked with rectangular stones of white marble, while above them the intertwined branches of the oak and linden trees planted along opposite sides of the path provided shade from the sun.
When Destiny spoke, his voice was the sound of inevitability. He didn't ask her if she wanted to come with him, or whether she would, yet his pronouncement wasn't a command either. It was simply what was going to happen. His foreknowledge was odd and even a bit creepy, but he was also considerate, anticipating her desire, for she had planned to ask him to visit the picnic spot from her childhood today.
Tara followed him into the garden, walking past the crumbling brick ruins of a long building or series of buildings. She couldn't tell which. Unsure of what to say, she let her eyes wander from side to side, taking in the scenery. She wondered why the structures of the garden were in such disrepair when the trees planted at even intervals along the sides of the path were well kempt and the precisely placed boundary stones were unbroken and polished to the point of reflecting her own image in their smooth white surfaces as if they had been set yesterday.
"How was your day?" Tara asked awkwardly to break the silence. The words had sounded innocuous as they ran through her mind, but as she spoke them, she realized how stupid they must sound.
"The same as all days," he replied. "I fulfilled my responsibilities as I must. I created new paths in my garden, ended old ones, offered hints of prophecy to oracles and mystics."
"What do you do though?" Tara said, hurrying to keep up with his long stride which quickly outdistanced her despite his deliberate pace. "Do you make the decisions for us? Is everything we do predetermined?"
"It's not that simple," he said. "Every day of your life, you walk the paths of this garden, your past shadowy and indistinct behind you, your future shrouded in darkness ahead of you."
"There's no one here but us."
"You simply don't see them," Destiny said. He lightly closed her eyes with his fingertips.
Suddenly the garden was full of thousands upon thousands of translucent people, each one following their own course, each path threading the labyrinth in its own fashion and marked with a different hue. The paths intersected and intertwined, creating a maze of intricate detail as they wove through the garden, none of them remotely straight as every choice, small or large, marked a change of direction.
Some people were accompanied by others who followed closely linked paths, while others walked in solitude. She thought she must be following one of the lonely paths now, but even though she was accustomed to such paths, it was hard now that she knew what it was like to walk beside someone else through your days, to rest beside them at night in the secure knowledge that their face would greet you first thing in the morning.
She wondered whether one of the threads she saw was hers and whether one of them was Willow's. If she could find their paths, could she see where they were going? And if she could see, could she do anything about it, touch those insubstantial threads with her finger and change them? Frightened of her own thoughts, Tara opened her eyes again and they were gone, all the colored threads and their people.
"I am the garden," he explained. "All the paths you and everyone else make."
"Isn't that strange?" Tara asked, tilting her head. Most of the time she could forget what Destiny was, having seen so many things that appeared much stranger on the surface in Sunnydale, then a statement like this one would remind her that he wasn't a man, that in fact, he wasn't a person at all.
"It is what I have been since the beginning." He looked around at the grassy knoll they stood on and the small lake at the bottom of one slope. "Here is our destination."
Giving up on her attempt to understand the deeper nature of Destiny, Tara looked around her at the vista of her childhood. The landscape was precisely as she recalled it from her dreams, which had turned out to not have been dreams at all. The clear blue waters of the lake which was shaped like a figure eight, the well-manicured lawns and hedges, the broken sheets of green-swirled pale marble that had once sheathed the now bare slate of the ruins of an ancient octagonal bath. It was all the same.
She turned back to her father to see that he had spread a red and black checkered blanket across the short grass of the knoll and had begun unpacking the wicker basket. A bottle of red wine with two crystal glasses. A wedge of soft white cheese with blue-green veins running through it. Plump red grapes. A loaf of warm, freshly baked brown bread.
"It looks lovely," Tara said.
"You'll like it," he said, pouring the wine into the two glasses with his left hand.
"Do you ever take that off?" Tara asked, pointing at the shackles that chained his right wrist to the book. She took a glass from him.
"Never. It is a part of me, as much as the Garden," he said. "Long ago though, someone stole it from me."
"What happened?" Tara said, ripping a chunk of steaming bread from the loaf. "Why did he do it?"
"Tonga of Etaf was a great wizard, but like many men, he increasingly feared death as he grew older. He tried spell after spell to discover when and how he was going to die; however, his divinations, while discerning of the fates of others, could not reveal the details of his own fate, and no other wizard was powerful enough to read his fate for him. He thought that if he knew how he was destined to die, he could use his magic to escape his fate. So he plotted to steal my book."
"How did he do it?" Tara asked between bites of fruit and bread. "I mean, you knew he was going to try to take the book, right?"
"It was written in the book that he would take it, so there was nothing that I could do. Though Tonga was exceedingly cunning and powerful, what was different about his attempt was that he was destined to succeed where all others had failed. However, he did not enjoy the fruits of his success once he understood the true nature of what he had taken. Reading his fate from the book, he discovered that his fate was to take the book and read from it, that, in fact, his attempt to escape his destiny was his destiny. No one can escape their fate, for in running from what must be, you only embrace what you think to flee."
Destiny's gaze seemed speculative as he regarded Tara for a moment in silence.
"What happened in the end?" Tara asked after a moment, wanting to be free of his scrutiny as she recalled her earlier thoughts about changing her and Willow's paths.
"He tried many things, magic and mundane, to change his fate only to find time after time that the events of his life turned out just as the book said they would. Every night he would read the passage describing his death over and over, seeking a way out, but he found none. Night after night the knowledge of his inevitable doom gnawed at him until he took his own life in the time and manner that it was written he would," he finished.
Tara shivered. "So that's why you won't let me read my future?"
"To know the certain future is never a blessing," he said as he cut a piece of bread off the end of the loaf with meticulous precision.
"But you told me that I would get back together with Willow," Tara objected.
"Yes, but not how or when or why, all of which the book would tell you in complete detail." he answered slowly.
"What about freedom of choice?" Tara asked, taking a quick bite of her bread. She shifted it restlessly from hand to hand while she waited for him to answer her question.
"What about it?"
"Does it exist? If everything we do is written down ahead of time, we're just zombies following a preordained path."
"That's one way of looking at things," Destiny said. He picked up a grape from the small bowl of polished cherry wood, raised it to head height and dropped it. "Events have consequences, from the beginning of time to the end. They cannot be avoided, but they're not the whole story."
"What's the other way?"
"Could you return to Willow today?" he asked calmly, sipping from his glass of wine.
"No," Tara said. "I mean, I could. I love her, but I haven't forgiven her and she hasn't changed ... or at least, I can't trust that she has yet."
"See--your choice flows out of who you are, what you have become through past choices and their consequences. You couldn't make a different choice without being someone else. Is that being forced to follow a path that's not yours or is that being true to the path that is yours? Destiny or free will?"
Tara chewed a new chunk of bread thoughtfully for a few moments, ignoring the flavors of her food in favor of the intricacies of her thoughts. Finally, she shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted. "But I also don't know how I can trust Willow enough to come back to her after what she did."
"Trust is not something I have. I cannot hope for the best or worry about the worst, as I know what must happen, good or bad. But I can show you a piece of your shared past with Willow so that you can decide for yourself whether you can trust her or not."
"Is it safe?" Tara asked, wary after his warnings of the dangers of reading from the book.
"Knowledge is power, and thus always fraught with danger. I offer you this gift freely though. You may choose to read it or not."
"But you already know what I'll choose?"
"Yes."
"Let me see the book," Tara said, putting down her glass as she gave up on second guessing her decisions. It didn't matter what her destiny was--she had to make her choices based on her own heart.
Destiny flipped backward through his book, pages rustling gently until he found the passage for which he was searching. Instead of showing her the page as Tara expected, he pointed behind her.
Following his finger, Tara found herself looking at ... herself, asleep with Willow in their old room together.
Tara woke up suddenly, panting and gasping for breath. Her eyes were wide, frantic with barely controlled anxiety as she looked up and down her body, which was covered in a cold sweat. She clapped her hands to her ears, clawing with her fingers again and again at her ears and face as if trying to tear away invisible tormentors.
Waking up beside her, Willow quickly sat up and gently took Tara's hands in her own as if this was something she had done many times before. Her eyes were bleary from lack of sleep, but her voice was calm and tender as she whispered reassuringly, "It's okay, Tara, it's okay. It was just another dream. It's not real. I found you. It's safe." Over and over she repeated her words until Tara's breathing slowed and she stopped struggling to claw at her face. Tara slumped against Willow, allowing her to securely enclose her in her arms.
"I can't go on like this," Tara said after a long period of silence. Looking into Willow's haggard face, she continued, "We can't go on like this."
"It'll be okay, baby." Willow squeezed Tara tightly to her chest. "She can't hurt you. It's over."
"It's not over," Tara insisted. Her voice was full of strain as she roughly pulled away to look into Willow's green eyes. "It's getting worse ... even with the sleeping pills the doctor gave me. I don't know what to do." She buried her face in Willow's shoulder again and began sobbing softly. "Every time I go to sleep, I see her, I see that place she sent me to. It's dark and noisy and those little pinching things are crawling all over me, trying to slither inside me, my nose, my ears, my mouth. I can't stand it anymore."
"I-I have an idea," Willow said. The hesitancy in Willow's voice made it clear that this wasn't an idea she wanted to bring up. "I've been doing some research, and there's a spell that might help, but I've been afraid to try it."
"You do?" Tara asked, looking up at Willow with eyes that were red and swollen from crying. "What is it?"
"It's a spell to forget bad memories. I think I can take away all the memories of what Glory did to you. You won't even remember me casting the spell."
"Do it."
"Tara?" Willow asked, her voice breaking with shock. "You haven't even seen the spell."
"I trust you."
"It's not like anything I've ever-"
"I trust you." Tara's reddened eyes pleaded with Willow to understand her need.
"Okay," Willow said, her green eyes shadowed with doubts. She disentangled herself from Tara and got out of bed, then padded over to her desk in bare feet. She took an oddly shaped dried flower from a glass bowl on the desk--Lethe's bramble--before walking back to Tara.
"Are you sure?" Willow asked, her tone still uncertain. "We can still do more research, find another way-"
"Just do it," Tara said, the dark shadows under her eyes betraying her exhaustion.
Willow bent over to kiss Tara softly on the lips. "If it's what you really need," she whispered. "I'll do it." Willow stood back up and murmured, "Forget," causing the dried plant to glow momentarily as she crumbled it in her hand.
Tara blinked and shook her head confusedly. "What happened?"
"Go back to sleep," Willow said, sitting down beside Tara on the bed and putting an arm around her shoulders. "You had a nightmare."
"I did?" Tara asked, scrunching up her nose. "I don't remember."
"It's alright now. Don't worry about it," Willow said soothingly. "I'll watch over you until you fall asleep again."
Tara smiled up at Willow, her eyes clear and peaceful, free of any memory of her nightmares and what had stopped them. "I love you so much."
"I love you too, baby." There was a hint of regret in Willow's eyes, almost as if she felt unworthy of saying those words after what she had done.
Tara curled up against Willow's side with Willow's arms around her, the lines of her face smooth and unworried, and closed her eyes. The change from her earlier haunted and terrified appearance was dramatic. She looked tranquil now, almost serene, secure in the knowledge that she rested in the arms of someone who loved her absolutely.
Willow watched Tara as her inhalations and exhalations slowed, tenderly stroking her hair as she relaxed fully into the embrace of slumber and dreams instead of fighting it as she must have for so long. Tears of relief glimmered in Willow's eyes, then spilled over to run down her cheeks. "I'll keep you safe Tara," she promised, kissing Tara's brow with a fierce protectiveness. "No matter what."
The scene faded as Destiny closed his book with a soft thud of thick pages.
"I asked her to do that," Tara said, the stiff awkwardness of her posture betraying how much this revelation had shocked her. "I never knew."
"As you wished, you forgot all about it: Glory, and the spell itself."
"But ... I-" Tara trailed off, unsure of how this discovery made her feel. She had seen what had happened, but what she didn't know was what Willow had felt while she had made such a momentous change in their relationship, in Tara herself, even though it was at her request. No matter what Willow's feelings were, they didn't make her later actions right, but she now understood how Willow could have contemplated doing what she had done.
"Even for events you do remember, it is sometimes startling to read them from the objective viewpoint of the book," Destiny added after she had been silent for a while. He cradled the book in the crook of his elbow, his long fingers reaching around to hold the front cover as if he was restraining it from opening of its own accord. "Perhaps it's best not to look at any more scenes of the past for today though."
As Tara's disbelief that she had actually asked for such a spell to be cast on herself ebbed, she found her buried anger at Willow's betrayal of her trust diminishing too. Perhaps she could forgive Willow and learn to trust her again after all. "Did she think she was protecting me when she made me forget a second time?" Tara asked finally.
"That I cannot tell you," Destiny said, seeming as calm as she wasn't. "The book tells me what happens, what choices people make, but not why they made them."
--
"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."
by Marilda » Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:26 pm
by The Inward Sea » Mon Jul 21, 2003 8:42 pm
Nasty, isn't it?Quote:
I never thought about each of us having one inside of us that way.
by justin » Tue Jul 22, 2003 3:20 am
I understand, you should be with the person you l-love
I am
by The Inward Sea » Tue Jul 22, 2003 12:27 pm
Beautiful image. "Seeing" without your physical eyes is an idea that always works for me. And the different hue thing -I know I'll become the cheesiest kitten around by saying this- made me remember of Carole King's "Tapestry" (oh, God, how OLD am I?). Sorry about thatQuote:
"You simply don't see them," Destiny said. He lightly closed her eyes with his fingertips.
Suddenly the garden was full of thousands upon thousands of translucent people, each one following their own course, each path threading the labyrinth in its own fashion and marked with a different hue."
but I love that song.A good question.Quote:
"What about freedom of choice?"
Interesting answer, that opens a discussion worth of kittens (the Kitten kittens, not little furry ones).Quote:
"You couldn't make a different choice without being someone else. Is that being forced to follow a path that's not yours or is that being true to the path that is yours? Destiny or free will?"
This sentence works like the chorus of a ancient Greek play (See? Now I'm comparing you with Sophocles!).Quote:
"I've been doing some research, and there's a spell that might help, but I've been afraid to try it."
Oh, dear. A part of me is not liking this at allQuote:
"Suddenly Tara knew just who this was."
"Death."
by JustSkipIt » Tue Jul 22, 2003 3:38 pm
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"Seek the company of those who are still seeking the truth and run away from those who think they have found it.--J.T. O'Hara
by Grimlock72 » Tue Jul 22, 2003 4:34 pm
. That could be logical person inside me, which makes it kinda hard to believe in Faith. After all if you read you would take a left turn at a specific point, you could easily turn right... maybe indeed the book of Faith is written as life goes along.--
"You hurt Tara," Willow said too calmly. "The last one who tried that was a god. I made her regret it." -- Unexpected Consequences by Lisa of Nine
by Triscuit7 » Tue Jul 22, 2003 7:12 pm
but they were good tears.
******************
I brought marshmallows!
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