Well, I’ll be honest - I certainly didn’t expect to get another post up today! But there were more Nano words to write and those words ended up concluding the scene started in the previous blog post… Again, I’m including this completely unedited, so you’ll notice a little notation like this popping up - “@todo”. This is a little something left over from my programming days, a short-hand I use to flag things that I’m not sure about in the moment but also don’t want to break the flow to figure out right then and there. So I pop an “@todo” in brackets, or right in the middle of a sentence, with the associated question, and then my brain is happy to come back to it. You know, when I’m editing… Which barely happens at the moment, but maybe we can change that in the near future too. With this scene there are a couple of things that I also feel don’t quite make sense yet, but I’ve learnt to let go of that awkwardness and to trust - these are the building blocks for more ideas that will follow. No need to nitpick too much on them now, the story will still flow into it’s own!
Hope you enjoy it :) I’d love to hear from you in the comments below! Oh, and I’ll be including this gentle reminder in everyone of these blog posts because, behind all these words, there’s still a person, a dreamer, a writer, who feels rather vulnerable yet excited sharing all of this with you :) And if you somehow found this post first, I’d strongly advise you to go back, read the previous one (or click here), and then come back to finish the scene here.
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A last, favourite quote as a gentle request and reminder that this is a truly vulnerable space, so please take that into account when you provide any feedback :)
“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
-William Butler Yeats (from a favourite movie, Equilibrium)
From my Sketchbook: “Ian Dives”, 13 October 2021
Painted at Virgin Active, post swim, after seeing this scene in my head lap after lap… A personal win as my writing journey started in 2016 with a dream of bringing my stories to life with not just words, but painting too!
Story context:
Genre: Fantasy
Main Character: Ian (originally from “Oasis”, written for Nanowrimo 2013)
Current Novel: “Kingdom of Dreams - Further Explorations” (no official title yet - work in progress for Nanowrimo 2021)
Redemption
The first thing Ian became aware of as he drifted back into consciousness was a throbbing pain in the back of his head. Around him, all was black, and blinking his eyes seemed to have no effect. Yet the darkness was strangely moving and murky, as if it was shifting all the time. He tried to move his hands, but again, everything felt sluggish and met a faint kind of resistance. Ian shook his heads and forced his eyes open again. The air burnt against his irises and it was then that he remembered - he was no longer breathing air at all. For a moment, his body started convulsing, pure reflex as he became aware of the water permeating his body, but he snapped his mind to attention and forced his body to comply. The throbbing headache remained, but at least his thoughts were clear. He would have to be careful though. She was a part of him now, and might be able to sense even what he was thinking. He would—
“Ah, I was wondering when you would wake up. Did our union tire you, dear one?”
The voice reverberated around him and inside his chest. She was everywhere. Ian shuddered and tried to hide his fear. The presence around him tightened, becoming painful, like the slow squeeze of a python taking its time with its prey.
“What’s the matter, Ian?” her voice was like the rushing waterfall now, but the water around him remained dark, he was sightless, and completely in her power.
“Nothing—“ He tried to answer, but the pressure around him increased even more and even the water in his lungs that had somehow been feeding him oxygen all this time was cut off.
“I know you came here with a plan, Ian. That you planned to deceive me,” Her words became a hiss where her anger punctuated her sentences. Ian was screaming, but the sound was all in his head - screaming didn’t travel far without air to carry it. He sensed her joy, a vicious kind of pleasure she took in his pain. “You humans, always so arrogant. Well, you’re plan didn’t work, dear one. And now, you’re all mine.”
Ian tried to smile, which didn’t really work given the present situation, but the effect was there nonetheless. And the Water felt it — her grip released for a brief second as if she leaned back in surprise, then tightened even more than before.
“You think this is funny, puny human? Would you like me to end your suffering right now, and wipe that smile off your face? Perhaps you would—“
In that moment, Ian tuned out her voices, slamming down the walls in his mind that he had practiced so many times before. Back in the desert, when— No, no memories. He enforced his self-discipline and shut all of it down. All of it but one desire - to conquer Water. To bend her will to his. At first, she chuckled, the water vibrating around him, creating little waves in the darkness. But then, the tide started to turn against her. Ian ignored the pain flaring in his limbs as he drew on everything he had to seize onto her presence around him. It was like clawing his fingers into a stone wall, but little by little parts were starting to give. She simply hadn’t expected any resistance, and her arrogance had left him an opening. A small, tiny, opening, but enough to start getting a mental hold. He forced all of his focus onto her presence, upon visualising her not as the powerful presence she was, but upon the tiniest of molecules out of which she was made. In his mind’s eye, he separated them, oxygen and helium (@todo check this?? The H in H2O…?), and forced his connection with the wind there were oxygen was. He knew it was a long shot - what connection would he still have with his faithful friend this deep beneath the surface? And yet, surely some of it remained in his very lungs, in his muscles, in the deepest fibre of his being. He didn’t need a lot—
There. It felt as if something gave and suddenly the pressure around him lifted completely. He felt buoyant and free, and nearly, very nearly, shouted at this not-so-small victory. Except for one crucial element - her water was also no longer feeding his lungs. This time, if he did breathe in, he would definitely drown. And then he would never escape the water’s grip.
His lungs burning, his mind on fire, he focused everything he had on keeping that small victory in their connection as his legs started kicking. He thrust himself towards the surface, arms clawing upwards, legs kicking, his body growing week and feeble. The darkness around him shifted, the water trying to drag him down, but it slid off his body as if he was coated in a fine layer of oil. The table of power had been turned and she could no longer get a hold on him, but he also wasn’t in control yet. He needed help, he needed his friend, the wind. Ian could see the light starting to break through the surface, green light filtering through the plants covering wherever she had taken him. He stretched up as far as he could, but his body was losing momentum and he had nothing left to give. Out of frustration, he screamed, letting go of the last air and water mixed in his lungs. But even that wasn’t enough. Ian wanted to shout in frustration but his body was going limp, and he felt his mental hold slipping too. The water around him was just starting to push in again when a hand reached out towards him. Ian jerked back at first, fearful that this was a hallucination, water’s way of getting back at him, but then he saw the face staring at him through the surface.
Christine. She had come. She had made it.
Ian grinned and somehow found the strength to reach toward that last hope of salvation. Their finger tips touched and Christine reached deeper, grabbing Ian’s hand and pulling him upward. For a moment, Ian was worried that she would forget and pull him all the way free, but at the very last moment, she let go and he plunged back in. But she had done her part - she had pulled him back, back to life, back to the surface where clean air filled his hungry lungs again. And where his friend the wind waited for him to give the signal.
“Now!” Ian called and he felt the Wind (@todo capitals or not to capital) swirling all around him, gently at first and then into a growing tornado. With each rotation the wind picked up more and more water and Ian cringed at the water’s screams of pain. He held her still in his mind, and her pain became his. It felt as if he was being torn limb from limb, as if he would never be the same again. And he wouldn’t. None of them would. He was tearing apart years of decay, of the Water receding from her true purpose, from who she had been made to be before the Shattering. He would bring her back together again, but not before she had been torn apart. This time, Ian didn’t try to hold back his screams, and he felt her scream through him. The wind roared, adding it’s voice, it’s agony to what was necessary, what needed to be done. Ian could feel the very atoms shifting and changing and suddenly, all became still. They hovered there, water, wind and man, in mid-air. Somewhere, Christine was watching from the sidelines, but for the moment Ian couldn’t sense her at all. His mind was filled with the elements before him.
“Please,” Ian whispered, reaching out to the water with his heart and mind. “Let me show you what love what was meant to be.” And with everything he had, Ian poured out every memory he had of love. Of Father, finding him as a young orphan, of sacrificing everything so Ian could have a home, a life, to know love for even a short time. Of Ari, her young, childlike innocence and the way she loved freely. Of love given without expecting anything in return, love that redeemed, love that restored what was meant to be. Tears flowed down Ian’s face — he knew what he gave now he might never get back. No one had ever attempted this, not since the Shattering, and his sacrifice might very well be his own memories, every memory he had of ever being loved.
But it was the only way. The only way to restore what once was, to not only give him control over the water, but to restore the relationship to what it was meant to be. That of Custodian, of caretaker, and of a beloved, one who would freely give back as much as she possibly could to the one who cared for her. It was a sacrifice he was willing to pay.
Ian lost track of how long they hovered there, but slowly, he became aware of the light shifting around him. He was back in the water, but this time he was floating on the surface and the water was a gentle warmth surrounding him, her very being pulsing with a deep contentment. She lifted him, gently, and the Wind took him from her, carrying Ian to the closest shore. Where Christine crouched, her face set in worry. The moment she met Ian’s eyes and realised that he was still a life, relief flooded her features and she stumbled forward, stopping right at the water’s edge and waiting for Ian to land. Ian tried to land on his feet, but his body gave way beneath him and he crumpled to the ground. Christine was there, her hand under his head, her face close.
“You idiot. I thought we were going to wait until tomorrow to try out your stupid plan,” she grinned at him through the tears streaming down her face.
Ian smiled back, the expression weak but sincere. “So did I. But it seems she had other plans.”
Ian turned his head and smiled. “But it was the perfect timing after all. Come, I’ll show you.” And with that, Ian pulled himself painfully to his feet and held out his hand to Christine. And the water rose into the shape of a person behind him.
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