Hi, Sparks!
What to share this week?
I’ve been withholding a lot these days. I know this whole Bottled Embers thing was supposed to be a way to help me process those embers filling my bottle. And these days there have been so so many embers. I know I’ve not shared them with you guys, but let’s face it, you guys are internet strangers. I really appreciate you all being here, it’s wonderful to know that someone is out there that cares about the things that go on in my head, but sharing personal stuff online is dangerous.
I would love to lay out all the hellish little traumas that have been piling up lately, get them out of my head and stop worrying about it all but the truth is none of it is my own.
It’s comforting to hear the sad stories of other people sometimes. It makes us feel gratitude for how good we have it, or feel less alone knowing someone else is also having a hard time. It’s nice to feel ‘seen’ and sympathize.
But when those sad stories, those personal traumas, happen to the people you care about, especially when it’s something that’s terrible for them but doesn’t directly affect you, the situation gets sticky. It’s really hard watching them suffer. You want to be sympathetic, you feel sad for them, and you share their pain and want to help them through it, but at the same time, you have your own life to deal with, and even though their whole world is standing still, yours is still turning. I know that that’s nothing to feel bad about, but survivor guilt is a real thing. You’re grateful that it wasn’t you, that for you everything is still hunky-dory, but at the same time, you’re left waiting for the other shoe to drop…
Anyway, I’ll let that hang there for you to contemplate, and dive right into 18 months later…
INDEX | Chapter 7 | Scenes 1 & 2 | Scenes 3 & 4 | Scene 5 | Scene 6 | Scene 7 | Scene 8 | Scene 9 | Scene 10 | Scenes 11 & 12 | Next Scene → Coming soon.
Previously: Misty comes across an enemy camp, full of soldiers who seem to be from a different nation who have captured some of her teammates. Thinking of Cathy, she decides to save them, then succumbs to a snake bite on her way to the evac. After she gets home, there’s an interrogation and when Cathy finally comes back she gives Elle a special gift.
I hear birdsong, sweet insistent chirps and whistles. I open my eyes and look at the slit of the sky that shows through the crack between my heavy scarlet curtains and the mustard-colored walls. It’s still dark out. The unlit ceiling doesn’t offer any wisdom either, so I just lay and revel in the stiffness of my muscles, and the memory of last night’s fight.
The lights around the cage were too bright but I could see every ripple of muscle beneath the leathery skin on that Drakisthan punk. He was huge, with dark green scales so sharp and jagged it’s a wonder he didn’t cut himself and the row of painted black spines down his back made him look extra impressive.
I run my fingers along the scabbed-over skin on my forearms. I remember how it felt when he pressed his plated shins into me, the hundred tiny little rips, shredding my skin where I pushed him away, and how my blood flowed, painting the white canvas of the ring red.
That was when I turned the tables, kicking him into the chain-link fence of the cage, and flipping him onto his back despite the resistance of his sinewy tail. I close my eyes and feel again, the way he tried to push back as I held him there while the ref counted him out. The million bucks in my bank account are worth the bloody nose and black eye and I still got the win. It was a good night.
When the first few early birds are joined by their latecomer friends and the cacophony becomes insistent, I prance out of bed and stretch, change PJ pants for trunks and grab a protein bar from my stash, then allow my feet to automatically follow the familiar path to the gym and the pool and watch the sunrise between laps as the stiffness finally leaves me.
I glance around the gym, feeling warm and loose despite the cool water. It’s been eighteen months since I pulled myself together and moved on and I swear I don’t see Elle’s ghost on the bars anymore, though I think of her, where she might be, and how she must have grown by now. The missing person notices are still up, but wherever Elle is she must be happy.
Luke must be on his way to the hospital by now and Tom will be at the dojo for his dawn classes. He is doing well I hear, with thirty-eight students now, calling him Grandmaster Thomas, at twenty-three. I chuckle inwardly just imagining how silly it must feel to them, all masters themselves and twice his age and still forced to bow with every greeting. He’s obviously not the youngest person to hold the Grandmaster title, but it is rare enough that it must feel strange to the middle-aged men he surrounds himself with.
I grab a towel and wrap it around myself before hanging up my favorite mercury-lead slurry punching bag.
“Cathy!” I call out, ignoring the sting it evokes and jumping over the top rope of the ring and bounding over the balance beam to give her a huge hug. It’s so good to see her. Her ponytail bounces and her hips sway like a model’s as she sachets into the gym with a large bundle in her arms.
They’ve let me fight as many matches as I want since I got my second medal in the field. It had been raining and the rest of the team had got themselves pinned. There was no snakebite that time and it only took a small burst of power to take the entire platoon out. They were so flustered when all their threats and energy weapons didn’t work that I almost walked right through them. It did almost make me go into regen, and even though the extra exercise has been doing me wonders, there have been some miserable days, like today.
I glance back at the poor guy in the ring. He’s young, but a capable fighter. Was a capable fighter. I put him down a little harder than I needed to, but he irritated me, and it hasn’t been a good day.
Cathy’s smile is just the trick to make it better. She pushes her package into my arms, with a grin and the gym and the other soldiers all around, fade away as I gratefully accept.
Inside is a new uniform. A fancy one. The jacket is sleek black with shiny golden buttons. There is a little box on top, and inside is my first set of pins, with two bars of starry blue ribbon, and my very own little Private insignia. Private?
I look at Cathy with the question in my mind, and she nods and grins, and holding hands, we both hop up and down in excitement. I got a rank! They gave me a rank!
After a moment, as I beam at Cathy, she gives my hands a squeeze and we quiet down. She looks into my eyes gravely, and says, “We have a dinner to attend.”
* * *
It’s been fun at The Base. That’s what the men call it, but it’s more like home. My time here has been pleasant, if mostly uneventful. They haven’t tried to educate me, or train me, or interrogate me the way Luke did, and as long as I stay with my escort, I have free reign of the facility.
As I put on each layer of my new service uniform, I think about how much this life suits me. There’s structure and routine. I have few choices, but that’s also nice, I don’t have to decide anything, too many decisions make me nervous. Here it’s all done, what to eat, when to sleep and shower and what to wear, and when and where and all that. It’s easy.
I zip up the skirt, tuck in my shirt, and shrug on the jacket. Cathy helps me pin on all my pins. She smiles at me, a most motherly smile filled with pride, and turns me around to look at myself in the mirror, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
Wow. I look different. When did my hips start to curve like that? When did my breasts get so big? These shoes make me so tall. I’m as tall as Cathy, maybe a finger’s width taller.
Cathy gives up after a few minutes of trying to convince me to put on makeup, but I let her help me braid my hair into a crown on top of my head and pin the rest up in a bun to sit neatly at the nape of my neck. It feels odd, as though something is off in my balance. I’ve never moved without the ankle-length braid behind me. With it all bundled up by my head, I feel a little top-heavy and it takes forever to find my balance.
As I hobble along behind Cathy in the uncomfortable shoes with the weight in my neck on the way to the shuttle, I try to remember all she told me about how this evening is going to go.
I’ve never been to a restaurant before. She says, not to worry, it’s a very exclusive club and they have the best steak in the city. We are going to meet her dad’s boss and receive orders for our next mission.
The moment Cathy sees her dad, her stance changes. It’s subtle at first, but she seems wary of him. The General eyes me up and down when Cathy presents me to him at the big white shuttle, nods his approval, and stands aside for us to enter. She sidesteps, just out of his reach when we pass him.
Cathy shows me where to sit, and how to fasten my safety belt for take-off and landing and assures me I can take it off while we are in the air. They have me in the middle between them.
The whole way there I can feel Cathy’s nervousness. It compounds my own anxiety, making it hard to keep myself from fidgeting, and even with the safety belt off I can’t sit still. What’s going on with you Cathy?
When we land on the roof of a large building in the city the General disembarks first, talks softly to the pilot while Cathy helps me down and straightens up my jacket and stockings. These shoes are murder. Cathy smiles nervously at her dad while he watches us impatiently, but after a few deep breaths, we are ready and walk past the doorman with barely a glance in their direction.
Immediately all my senses are assaulted with a dazzling display. The building is all creamy and golden inside and there are too many bright lights and people of every kind, constantly moving. There are little tables set everywhere, with glass and silver all over them, and loud music to cover the sound of a score of conversations. The air is thick with scents of all the species in the room, and it is all smothered in the smell of a hundred different dishes.
I stop in the middle, unable to take another step, feeling dizzy and overwhelmed. Too many. I look around me, trying to remember what to do next. There are energy signatures everywhere, all different races, so many they blend into one another. There are people in shiny dresses and black uniforms and jewelry and perfume. I can’t breathe. My energy is starting to rise. It feels like the world is spinning.
Cathy stands in front of me, puts her hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes. She calls out to me to get my attention. “It’s okay. Just breathe.” She says, nodding slowly, then faster when I mirror. After a moment she grabs my hand and leads me and I follow in a daze. A few steps later, we enter a private room, and the door closes behind us, shutting the rest of the world out. It’s okay. I’m okay.
Next Time: Dinner with the General’s bosses, puts Misty in an uncomfortable position, and when they’ve had their fill of steak and conversation things take an interesting turn.
Thanks so much for reading! If you like, please:
Or better yet:
and as always, I love hearing what you think so, feel free to:
On the personal life front, only the people closest to you are of any specific use for getting advice. As an old guy, I can tell you, in general terms, that all you can do is be loving and supportive, but it's all but impossible to make any difference in the problems of others over which you have no Direct Control... do With that as you will:) As for today's entry, with every fiber of my being, I hope you are leading us towards the reunion with Logan I, the one I'm sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for... Speaking of Unfinished Business and closure :)
Well Jenny, I am feeling like there are two separate orbits that Elle and Logan are occupying since her escape, but that are starting to converge. Possibly Cathy is wanting to accelerate her plans, now that Elle seems settled into their routine. But has she gotten complacent and is underestimating the risk... We shall see, right?
*******
And I can only hope you continue to find a way and the support to manage all those other stress points in your real life! Bueno suerte!