Chương 41: Unbinding Miriam

The next day Miriam woke to an unfamiliar sensation. She was nestled into a bed in a small cabin used for visitors to the Walk. Around her was wrapped an impossibly soft hand-woven quilt, and under her head was a pillow shaped just right to support her head without being punctured by her horns. The calls of tropical birds echoed outside and a little more distantly she could hear the hum of Láthair Maol waking up from slumber; quiet, friendly voices just starting the day. Miriam was comfortable.

She stretched luxuriously. A rusted basement cot and a hammock in a closet couldn't compare to a real bed stuffed with goose feathers. Still, comfortable or not, Miriam had things to do today. She got out of bed and found the chest where Luíseach had said she would find new clothes. Her sailor's gear from the Líadan was ruined from the seawater - as well as from blood and the grasping thorns of the jungle outside. And finally she could peel off Solas' yellow overalls, which were hanging by a thread themselves.

The chest was full of options - some seeming exceedingly vintage by the moth-holes and some almost brand-new. She was thrilled to actually find undergarments to wear - it had been months without. A tight black shirt with short sleeves was her next pick - good for if she needed to strip off any outer layers due to heat. She found a pair of green pants, which she rolled up to her knees. Miriam knew from her chase with the bird-thing when she first got here that it would be easy to get caught in the brambles.

She also opted to continue going barefoot. Her soles had toughened up considerably and she thought her connection to the earth was tied to her skin being in contact with it, like in the cave where she had been so easily able to retrace her steps. She was about to close the chest when she found a bright yellow jacket near the bottom, with a furred high collar. It might be useful to have some sort of covering for her arms, if she was going to be fighting beasts.

It fit almost perfectly, and she thought it seemed rather stylish - the sides ended shorter than most jackets, just below her rib cage. And perhaps Miriam had grown to think of herself rather fetching in yellow. Cian wasn't a projection in the bald spots, but he could still project himself if he wanted. That was how, the first day after their arrival, he was able to play mentor to all of them at the same time. He waited for Miriam in a fallow field close to the jungle's edge.

"We grow our own vegetables here," he explained.

"Domhain and Scior aren't really appropriate for farmland, so we have to wedge both residential and agricultural areas together. Lucky for us, this field is ready for a new rotation, so we have some time before it's planted again."

"Interesting," Miriam said politely.

"Now. How about my problem?"

"Ok," he said, rubbing his hands together.

"What have you tried?"

"Basically I tried just visualizing holding back my other natures, but that did nothing. Trying to use my other natures to hold each other back didn't work either. A lot of variations on those ideas." Cian floated close to her and squinted.

"Sorry, I'm not staring. This is my analysis technique. I'll teach one to you once we get all this sorted out. So, you have three equal streams of fórsa. One you've woven into your skin in a classical Water method. Another you've wrapped around your bones for Life. And the third is just sitting in your heart, doing nothing."

"Yeah. I was taught the water one, but the other two I kind of stumbled into." Miriam tried not to be self-conscious under his gaze, but it was difficult. He might look like a child, but there was a real intensity in his gaze that hinted at his true power. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Ok. So, this Eoin fellow should have taught you this. These weaving visualizations - are just that. A way to think about your fórsa. It doesn't change what the fórsa actually is. So, while you have a visualization that these are three separate streams of power, they aren't. They are just one." Cian rubbed his chin.

"If you think about it like that, what do you envision?"

"I… well, I have this sort of mind space. Water is like a river, flowing strongly. Life is like wind moving through a tall lane of grass. And Blight is a still lake." Closing her eyes, she saw her mindspace clearly.

"If they're all the same…" The water flooded the channel of green grass, reminding her uncomfortably of the Golden Swamp, but it still made sense. The Blight however, refused to join. It was just there, still and foreboding.

"The Blight doesn't want to move," she complained.

"Its form is stillness. It won't move with the others." Cian winced sympathetically.

"Sure… Blight's form is stillness. But Life's form is song, and you haven't described the grass as singing." Miriam frowned.

"That's true. What are you saying?"

"That the forms are ways for you to access your natures, to become in tune with the fundamental natural shapes that you impose on the world when you use them. They are not strictures that define the natures inside your own fórsa stream." Cian pounded his own chest with a clenched fist.

"If the Blight inside your fórsa stream is still, it's because you don't really want it to move."

"I don't," Miriam blurted.

"Honestly, I would rather you teach me how to remove it. I find it repulsive. While it was useful in the jungle before, I would be better off with just Water and Life." Cian's constant smile faltered.

"Miriam… I'm sorry, but… I can't remove someone's fórsa Nature. Your natures are the shape of your soul. Once you take one on, it's a part of you. Forever."

"What? No… I… Eoin said we could do something about it," Miriam backed away, looking at her own hands.

"Did he… did he just tell me that so I would agree to free him from the Líadan?"

"I don't know what he told you," Cian said gently.

"But in all my time alive, I've never seen anyone do it. I've seen some people try." Miriam was breathing heavily now, sinking to her knees in the tilled earth.

"This can't be what I am. Rot and decay and death. The first time I used Blight, I… I made a person rot from the inside out. And… the smell…" Cian sat down next to her.

"There's a reason I brought you to this field. Right now, this dirt is dead. New crops will not grow here. You lived a long time in a small town. How do you fix this?" Miriam looked absently at the soil.

"Compost. Mulch. Fertilizer."

"Dead matter. Rotting life. By sowing it into the ground we create a fertile field for new life to grow. Death is a part of life. You have experienced enough to know this. Blight does not describe your morals. It doesn't create a judgement upon your character. As much as it can lay waste to old life, it can clear the way for new."

"But is that really what the shape of my soul is now? At least a part of me reserved for death and corruption?" Miriam wiped tears from her face.

"Yes," he replied bluntly.

"But how you view it is up to you. You can be a scourge of the living. A pestilence. An infection. Or… you are the cleansing power that brings rebirth to a new world. Neither is a lie, but what you choose to be is largely how you choose to use these gifts. I think of all things, you would identify closely with death and rebirth." Miriam laughed softly.

"You're right. There was a Miriam Callihan that had to die so that this one could be born. And while I will miss her… her time was up. And she made way for something new. Ok. I'll try to think about it that way." She stood and returned to her mindspace. The swampy lane of her Water and Life Natures still burbled on uninterrupted. The black lake of Blight still waited, unmoving. She reached out a hand to it.

"Rebirth," Miriam whispered.

"Not just death. Not just rot. Renewal. That's what you are." The lake, which might have well been made of black glass for all the time she had ever seen it, began to bubble. Slowly, its waters began to lurch towards the swampy line of her other fórsa. Within the waters she saw shadows of unpleasant things - limp shapes, bones, flesh - but she tried to just accept it. Under everything, that is what people were. When the end came, it's what they would all return to. It was necessary if any rebirth was to happen.

The black water joined the other two fórsa natures. With that she stopped seeing these three as concepts of things in the real world. It wasn't a lane of grass. It was green-colored energy that was hers to do with as she pleased. It wasn't really Water, it was just fórsa that came in a water-like shape. Before her then, as steady as a stream coming from a hose, was the true shape of her fórsa. A constant stream of power, rippling with three colors.

"There you go," Cian said with a giant smile.

"That's the first step!" Miriam held out her hand and produced a vine. Still wet and rotting.

"What the hell?" Miriam said, glaring at Cian.

"Hey, I said it's the first step. More steps to go."