by Moore, Gabi
Shame, I thought. That was weird.
“Hey there... sorry to interrupt, just passing through."
Erol? I thought, scanning my memories for his characteristics. There you are...
"Actually, I'm all fucked up by this briar patch."
"Do you need some help?”
Well that was easy.
Chapter 5
I wanted to wrap this whole thing up as quickly as possible. If this quest were up to me, I would straight take this guy's will and then force him to follow through with whatever plans Thane had in mind for the guy. I was in no mood for games, and I figured that if I was going to enjoy my time away from the Fae realm, it needed to be after my responsibilities were taken care of.
A sense of urgency overtook me, and I decided that I would charm him. I would move forward with as ruthless tactics as would be allowed.
No sex, and no seizure of free will, I thought to myself. I can work with that.
I brushed a leaf from my hair, and pretended to be very concerned with removing some imaginary thorn from my pants. Standing up, I was able to catch a glimpse at him as he approached. He looked like a total square.
"I've fucked with beings that are stronger than you," I silently swore, and then offered a nod of acknowledgment and a disarming smile.
He approached looking concerned, and a bit unsure of himself.
"So glad someone found me,” I said. “I might have been stuck here for a while."
"Looks like you might not have been too bothered."
*Astute and conservative.*
*Interesting.*
*Divert to the physical.*
"You wouldn't believe how deep some of those scratches go..."
*Blush.*
"Hiker?"
*Sensual thrust diverted into contextual small talk.*
He had closed the distance between the two of us by that point, and I noticed how easily my body responded around him. My body drew nearer to him on a subconscious level. I could feel my own heartbeat, as well as an increased level of heat flow through my entire system. My own impulses were fucking with my focus. The body I was in couldn't distinguish the difference between intent and reality.
I was ready to pounce him and strip his clothes off then and there. I had to breathe deeply and restrain myself.
"Actually I was climbing in some of those trees. Really just trying to get some solid exercise in, and my foot slipped. Fell straight down into that briar patch."
"Ouch," he winced.
"Really fucked up my clothes. If I didn't know better, I'd say these vines were trying to get in my pants."
I stared at him, catching his eyes directly within my own. I wanted to know whether or not he would respond to the imagery I had offered. I caught another blush, and moved to close the distance between the two of us once more.
"Ha ha... okay, well you look like you're doing all right now."
His stance shifted, and he looked to the side. The embarrassment only lasted for a moment, but the seed had been planted. He would have little choice at this point but to move forward with me in a context which had already included sexual conceptualization. He regained his footing and met my eyes as I moved closer.
If I could get close enough for contact, I could cast a touch based charm. He would retain enough autonomy to be useful, but every suggestion I had to offer would assume the position of primary directive in his mind. Naturally, to minimize damage to others in his life, he would still be able to function as usual.
I had no use for mental slaves, but I did need this man's help if I was going to achieve the reason for my visit to the material plane.
"I'm glad you're around, because I was beginning to wonder if I had actually gotten lost. The fall and all of the tangles from the briar patch are fucking with my head a bit. I don't seem to remember the way out of here."
He nodded and held my eye contact. "Well, you're actually pretty far in, so I wouldn't doubt that you might be lost. You're actually way off the trail. I was here looking for something a bit off the beaten path. If I hadn't of shown up, I'm not sure that you would have seen another person today."
This guy talks like a knight.
I nodded and did my best to appear grateful, but he sensed something was off in my demeanor.
"Here," he offered, "this might help."
From his backpack, he produced a large metal canteen.
I watched him carefully, and allowed myself the slightest hesitation before reaching out for the canteen.
"Here," he insisted, holding the canteen outward in my direction.
My hand reached out to grab ahold of the water, and I very carefully, and very intentionally placed the tips of my fingers along the backside of his hand. While I touched him, I looked him in the eyes and transmitted the mental energy necessary for the charm to work. My lips parted into an easy and gentle smile.
"Thank you for your help."
He blushed once more, and I felt the rush of magic course through my body.
It was done. The suggestion was planted, and the contact was made.
By all accounts, everything should have worked. Instead of staring at me in a post hypnotic haze, he only shrugged, and turned to the side. He even took a step backward and turned away for a bit; as though he wanted to give me a bit of privacy while I hydrated myself.
The whole thing was confusing, and after a long draw from the canteen, I looked down to see that one of my breasts was hanging out of a tear in my shirt. There was no way to remedy the situation by simply placing the breast back into the shirt. Both my body and the hole in the shirt were too large for that level of adjustment to be possible.
I looked over at him and watched as he intentionally diverted his gaze toward some nearby flowers. He had kneeled down toward the ground and brought out a camera so he could take a photo of a flowering vine that grew in bundles along the forest floor around us.
"Tell me what you're looking at," I said, verifying that my spell had worked.
"I'm sorry?"
He turned around to look at me. His eyes went to my breast, and then up to my face once more.
"I was thinking about something, what did you say?"
*Failure.*
I turned my shirt around my body so that my breasts were at least relatively contained. The scratches that were in the back of the shirt were at least salacious and revealing, but not entirely compromising the functionality of the shirt.
I shook my head and offered a defeated smile.
"I was just curious as to what you were looking at."
"Oh, this..."
The tips of his fingers gingerly brushed against a tri-color, trumpet shaped flower.
"Ipomoea Violacea. That's the formal name for it. It's one of the environmental factors I track in my research. I find that in all of the locations that I have visited over the last three years, some variety of this sort of plant has been present in the area, even if the actual subject I am looking for is nowhere to be found."
"You're looking for a rare type of flower?"
He smiled wearily.
"Something like that."
I offered the canteen back to him, and he accepted it with a continued smile.
"I've been looking all over the area, but I think I’ll be calling it for the day."
He looked up at the sky for a moment and then looked back down at me. He was working something out in his head, and then decided that it was important for him to share the thought pattern out loud.
"I was about to head back. I think it's probably going to start raining soon. Do you want to head back toward the road with me? You can get back home from there, I'm sure."
"Sure. That would be great."
I looked at him once more and offered a nod of gratitude. Right about then, he looked down and noticed that I was not wearing any shoes.
"Do you have a car?"
The question lingered in the air for a moment, and I shook my head from side to side.
"C'mon�
� I'll give you a ride back into town."
Fortunately for me, he wasn't exactly the talkative type. I had him, and I was able to move forward in contact with him. For the moment, that had to be enough. I wasn't in any condition to talk about much at all. I was tired and it was difficult enough for me to move my body through the forest, let alone bother to keep up any sense of conversation.
He seemed to sympathize with me in that regard, as he didn't mind the fact that I didn't have enough energy to share at that time. The entire time, I was walking, but I was also keeping an eye out for him. I wanted to know how he saw the world.
I noticed that he wore jewelry. Occult bracelets and amulets of different sorts. There were bits of copper wire, and crystals of different shapes. I was certain that there were more that I wasn't immediately aware of. He was too interested, even on a superficial level, to not have deeper and more hidden protection charms.
I wonder...
The prep info that I read through before the portal experience came back to me in pieces, though I didn't have the attention span to focus on them.
"Lots of jewelry."
The statement was more along the lines of a thought that spilled out from my mouth. An absence of filters, but it was interpreted as a conversation starter.
"Oh, lots of different purposes. I'm a bit of an enthusiast."
"What are they for?"
"Do you believe in lucky charms?"
"Sure, I believe in a lot of things."
"Well, that's it. They are basically lucky charms that help me by reminding me about certain ways that I want to live my life."
"You have a lot of different ways that you want to live your life."
"You seem pretty interested, but you're not wearing any jewelry yourself."
He was switching the topic, but I felt like If I pushed harder, I might be able to pick up something useful about him from this topic.
He was a powerfully built man, and the trinkets didn't seem like they went along with a warrior type persona. This man was a superstitious magician, through and through. However, just because I could pin down his type didn't mean I had any hope of understanding him without inquiry.
"They look like rocks to me," I said, wondering if I could bait him into revealing more.
His response was benign.
"That's what a lot of people see."
"But you don't see them that way. To you, they hold more symbolic meaning."
"I personally believe that lucky charms are just 'rocks' that have an emotional charge attached to them. That emotional charge can be anything, but the point is that it is there. Have you ever heard of a person who has jewelry as an heirloom?"
I nodded.
"Well, that jewelry is physically little more than metals, and rocks, crafted together in some sort of clever or stylistic fashion. When we accept the plane material explanation for it, we see nothing more than rocks and metal. However, as soon as we start talking about how it was created, and the intention of the person who created it, then the object begins to grow more pregnant with meaning. Now suppose that you have your entire life to know this person, who would be some sort of grandparent to you. Everything that grandparent has ever taught you, and all of the value that this person has provided for your life will be bound in emotion and memories.”
I nodded, my attention coming out of my state of fatigue out of sheer curiosity for the extent of this man's knowledge.
"Now, imagine that this grandmother gives you this ring. All of her memories may or may not still be attached to the object, so if you want to talk about generational significance, or artistic intention in creation, these might still cling to the object. But what is for sure is that all of the memories that you have associated with the grandmother will definitely be attached to the piece of metal."
"So the ring is symbolic for the value of the grandmother."
"Exactly, it is a talisman. A symbol for the psychic contents that you assigned to that person in your life."
"So, those are like heirlooms?"
I wanted to get the truth out of him, and sometimes, you have to pull a tail until the dog barks at you.
"No, but they are talismans of a different sort. Memories of people are not the only psychic contents that human beings have to work with, though they can be very powerful."
I got the impression that he didn't exactly know which ones were effective and which ones were not. All too often, the problem with folk magic is that one simply believes a thing to be true. In reality, magic is based on fundamental cultures of belief, meaning, if it doesn't have a cultural form of validation, chances are that one person's belief is not going to make enough of an impact. I recognized some of the stones that were effective, though I was pretty sure that the others didn't work exactly as he assumed.
"You know if you're going to hike in areas like this you really should have some kind of back up system."
"I'm sorry?"
"Forgive me if I'm a bit too assuming, but it doesn't seem like you were prepared to be caught in that area like you were. If you had broken a leg or something in that fall, we'd be in serious trouble."
He looked over toward me and made a quick evaluative glance.
“I might have been able to carry you out you don't want to have to rely on something like that. Besides, that would hurt like hell."
"Ha! I was lucky you showed up, but I don't have any jewelry."
He appreciated that, and we walked together closer toward the highway. When I could hear the trucks passing on the road, I began to worry that I would lose touch with him.
Calm. I had to remind myself. Chasing after something is the surest way to get that thing to run away from you.
We didn't have to hike too much farther before we found his vehicle. He drove a beat up, tiny thing compared to the other trucks that passed on the road. The inside was just as decorated as his body, and smelled of incense.
"I wish I knew how your brain worked..."
It was a true statement, and an invitation all at the same time. I spoke while examining more of the occult paraphernalia which filled our environment. I picked up what appeared to be a bird skull with stone inlets for eyes. The item itself was totally worthless.
I could feel the magic emanating from one of the objects in the car. If I had been free to cast a spell of identification, or perhaps even pick up each one, I might have been able to tell. For the moment, I was surrounded by both trash and treasure, unable to distinguish for myself why this man would see fit to keep everything.
"It's all part of my work."
"I think it's really fascinating. I wish I knew what draws you to collect stuff like this."
"Oh this, this is nothing. I've got way cooler stuff at home."
"Can you show me?"
He paused, clearly not knowing what to make of my proposition. It was clear to me that most people were not interested in what he did for a living. Obviously not many women either, if the surveillance data was right about his sex life. The pause lasted for a good few minutes while he considered his response. We were already rumbling down the mountain when he replied.
"Do you want to stop by my house? Oh, I'm Erol, by the way."
I nodded.
"Aria. I'd love to learn more about your work…"
Chapter 6
I woke up while we were pulling into his driveway. The scenic mountain views were all absent now. Instead of hillsides and forests, I was treated to a small run down house adjacent to the railroad tracks, and a vacant lot.
"We're here."
As soon as we arrived, the door burst open, and two dogs ran out of the house and came up to the car on either side. Whatever drowsiness had been present inside of me was immediately dismissed by the appearance of the dogs. They were loud, happy, and beautiful.
"Aren't you concerned about them running away?"
"They do that on a regular basis, but they come back home again because we are family."
I watched as he opened the doo
r and all pretense of project based worry left his expression.
"Oh, hello! Good to see you too."
Licks, scratches and kind nips on the hand all followed summarily.
Naturally, my presence had not gone unnoticed. As soon as I made any movement to get out of the car, both dogs were on me. They pushed their nose up into my crotch and jumped up onto me, scratching at my chest with their paws. In spite of the attack, there was no malice in their interaction. The dogs were wet, and smelled like they had just gotten back from playing out in the rain. I was smelled, and decreed "not a threat" by one of them. The other sneezed after smelling me, and backed away with its ears flattened against its back.
"Don't mind her... if one of them likes you well enough, the other will come around to it. Come on in, I'll show you around."
The rain was still coming down from the sky, though the showers were gentle, and patches of sunlight shone through the clouds. The scenery was idyllic, and I felt that apart from the abrasive interruption from the dogs, the whole experience might not have been much more than a continuation of a pleasant dream.
More strange things...
The observation was targeted at a windmill located outside of the house. It was composed of the rays of an alchemical sun, and the centerpiece was the maw of some mythological creature.
"Abraxas," he replied, opening the beak of the creature and pulling a few letters out from a box located inside of the monster's mouth. "The post office loves it, even though they don't know why."
I looked at him inquisitively, which was all the encouragement he needed in order to continue forward with his explanation.
"Abraxas is a gnostic entity whose function is to unite the dualism present in the world. No God, No Devil, both are absolved in a single concept. The mailbox is a joke of mine."
"What's the joke?"
"Each time they put a piece of mail inside, they are giving an offering to Abraxas. My hope is that on some level that helps them contend with the forces of darkness in our world just a little bit easier."
I paused.
There wasn't anything particularly funny about that joke. I wished that I could have because when you are busy flattering someone, it is often a good idea to think that their jokes are funny, but I got the sense that this guy had a bullshit detector of some sort inside of his brain. I didn't want to risk coming off as inauthentic if I could help it.
