Taking a day or two to go through all your clothes and write down what you have and how many of each type has been incredibly freeing.
I can tell myself I have enough. I do not need more. I can slow down, stop chasing any ad that grabs my attention. I can unfollow and unsubscribe to all apps, mails and accounts which would make me want to consume. Sit back in that white plastic chair resting in the grass, feeling like my hunger finally is allowed to still. I do not have to run towards some imaginary future where I keep identifying with the purchases I make, or that something new will make me feel or do better. (sidenote, this makes thrifting so much more appealing as well as sewing. I am often driven from this perspective due to being chronically online but when I keep rediscover it, I always feel like this is a race that can pass me by and I would not suffer.)
(...) to turn my head, to look back at my captors and give them the satisfaction of seeing me scared. Or relieved, I thought. Relived I knew a truth they did not. A world where the gods spoke and their words rang true inside my bones.
I chanted a line from the old texts I'd read while I still worked at the library to occupy myself.
"Wake them," the wind echoed the water. A splash, then heavy breaths mixed with the sounds of the night behind me. Chills traced up my spine, settling close to the rune in the nape of my neck. The flames flickered with the disturbances, levitating with the movement of the sea as if floating. The flames jolted back and forth in front of me before they burst and their light snuffed out.
A muscular arm wrapped around my neck and started pulling me backwards towards the shore. I kicked around me, startled and out of oxygen from the pressure. The chain slapped against something solid. A man grunted. It was a weak display of force at best, and not really one I could afford in my current condition. Still, I continued to fight against his hold, like a body taking its last, unwilling spasms before dying.
"Come here you two!" Two men hurried to his aid. As sea became sand, they picked me up by the legs and carried me on land. The chains clinked against each other with each step. I gritted my teeth as they rubbed harder against my sore wrists and ankles. Trees started to cover my vision of the night sky. Longer they walked until the canopies thinned and I could see the open sky again. At that point, I was sure, I was going to pass out from the lack of oxygen and pain. The exhaustion from staying alive so long in the freezing sea, the lack of food and water - it all came to me. Hit me like a boulder as they dumped me back into my cell without any of it.
"Don't fall asleep on us just yet, girl," a male voice said. It wasn't one of the one that had carried me, but the voice was unmistakably familiar. Pushing my eyelids open, I tried to taking in a distorted view of the man before me. He was young, younger than I expected. Dark eyebrows hid a pair of stormy blue eyes unusual for his region. I cracked a humorless smile.
"They got you too, Corbin. Traitor boy." He jerked up. Surprise, then disgust filed his face as he recognized me. He pulled my head forth, and found the rune itched into my neck.
"Grounds forbid."
"I remember a boy who was not afraid," I whispered.
"I remember the monster," he said, quickly, locking the cell door between us. "And that she's supposed to be dead."
"Why don't you give me a blanket and some soup? We may discuss the stories like we used to."
"You're dead to me. Vanya, you know what you did. You deserved your fate. I won't apologize."
"That's cruel, Corbin. I did what I was told. A request and a reward. You used to believe-"
"Stop with that!" He burst. "No more gods and disillusionments. The old gods are gone. There are no more gods, and no more saviors for those left behind."
My teeth clicked painfully against each other and shivers traced all across my body. I knew I didn't have long left in this vessel.
"I want to experience the end of the prosecution of people like me. Are you sure there are no soup left?"
"Yes," he said, and walked away. I sunk back down to the ground and huddled up in a corner. I liked this body, truth be told. Found its looks more useful than I'd first anticipated, not to forget, nostalgic. It was closer to how I'd once looked than most of the bodies I'd occupied. Ashy blond hair curled down my back, sun-freckled skin, and a constant ache of- I didn't really know the ailments of this body, hadn't inhabited it long enough to learn a word for it. Regardless, the previous soul trashed and screamed from somewhere deep inside me where I'd chained it up against some invisible wall. It experiencing the same coldness that settled over my own flesh and nerves, and it knew.
Death took my fingers and toes first, then my muscles and at the brink of dawn, my heart.
I dance across the landscape, free as light. No chains held me. Well... No chains had held me. My soul pushed against an invisible net as I was forced to gaze back onto the land far below me. I was slowing down, struggling to push on and get to the place I'd planned. White flames popped up across the landscape, dotting the mosaic of farming fields and rivers. I was descending much faster than I had anticipated. I had to pick soon, I realized, before I touched the ground and returned to the Elements. They'd wanted me back for a while.
Every escape I completed made them crave me a little bit more, tighten their pull on me as I floated. But I wasn't ready to let go just yet. I'd decided upon a man in the nearby village. Strong, stout, alone, but wealthy enough to get me to the Fever City without too many problems. Maybe he'd even live after I left him for another body. But it was too far away now, I too close to the ground.
I analysed the flames in the landscape below me. A handful rested around the lake and rivers of the province while others moved steadily across fields of wheat or apples. Water usually meant they could swim. Any could be useful as long as I was able to realized their potential. In the end, I settled on a stark flame by the forest, hoping it would be a hunter or a woodsman. Someone strong and agile and persistent. Another flame ran for it as I crushed down into the body, a smokeless fire hissing after me.
the wrongful making of a saint. Four Gods slumber, cursed by the Hero of Men. A girl, convinced she's blessed by the gods, sets out to wake them to save herself and end the prosecution of her people. As myth comes alive, and the gods - one by one - return to the land, Vanya must learn the truth of the gods banishment or pay the price of her newfound powers.
Begging norwegian bookstores to invest in my nieche interest so I don't have to import every single book, zine, magazine and poetry collection
Hyldyr; rooted magazine; obsolete spells; woman's lore; pagans; garden physic; becoming the forest; the maden, the mother and the the crone collection; the emergence v 2;
There are people who will admire you for the things you're afraid to share because a few people in your life weren't willing to recieve it. Trust the people who believe in your vision. It's a fairer reflection of what you're doing than the people who are set on misunderstanding and disliking something just because it is unfamiliar.
