Full Fathom Five He Lies (solo story)

[Fia]

When dawn came Fia didn't move; refused to open her eyes. She lay in the inn's crude bed letting her body sink into the straw mattress and listened to chittering birds outside her window.
If she didn't open her eyes, she could concoct a world in which she still slept in her own bed beneath a thatched roof. She would rise before her grandfather in the white dawn and begin the hearth. The cold would start to splinter and break and she'd wake him as the house became golden. Breakfast would be shared and they'd talk until her Uncles trampled in and the day's work began in front of the bellows. There would be the rhythm of family, the steady love that pervaded the home like light and air: assumed and unquestioned.
Fia's eyes opened. Morning was just inching out of darkness, and she was still in Scara Brae. The room was unfamiliar and she was alone. Snatches of a strange tongue came in through the window, breaking whatever remained of the spell. She got ready in the dim light, ever frugal with her candles. After dressing she undid the chain at her neck that suspended a ring and a locket and tried the ring on her finger. It was a simple, Elven band made with winding cords of autumnal bronze and rose gold. She frowned, it still fit a little loose. She had lost too much weight on the sea journey.
Sailing had a greater charm before I attempted it. All of those ballads about pirate lovers and sailing maidens failed to mention vomiting and unwashed passengers.

It was one more day in her half formed life and she was still in pursuit of half formed plans. Days earlier she had stumbled off an overcrowded ship, with all her worldly possessions tucked in her pack and questions in her heart. Scara Brae was a good place to start, so many people passed through that the air had a perpetual tang of possibility.

She breathed deep the city's air when she stepped out the inn door. Today she needed to get a whetting stone. It was a simple errand that would pull her through the morning. The barkeep had recommended a morning market in a poorer part of town for decently priced goods, if one was willing to haggle. It sounded like it would be full of people, and that cheered Fia.

[Fia]

The market air was warm with body heat and made sweet by the musk of burning wood, sweet breads and spices for sale. It overwhelmed Fia. She could not easily transition from the crisp smells of dawn into a melee of aromas. It made her woozy as if she ate a meal too rich for her.

Merchants beckoned and enticed from beneath tattered awnings striped in colors that may have been vibrant before cooking smoke had painted them in soot. Mothers, daughters, travelers and traders clustered around stands or blankets spread with wares. She had never seen such a cacophony of strange and practical goods in her bucolic village. Merchants had passed through and even the less savory gypsies with their wagons of bright bottles and quilts, but nothing like this. And to have such a market everyday!
She had liked the gypsies and visited their camps even though her grandfather scowled and spit over their arrival.
"You can't trust those rambling sorts, Fia," he would chide, "They have nothing to tie them down. No land, no Laird. What's to keep them accountable for what mischief and thievery they work?"
It was sound advice, but her whims would send her frolicking about even when reason said to stay put. Even now, her whims were propelling her toward a purple awning that covered an old woman swathed in red fabric that had seen its prime decades before.

Age had curled the woman's shoulders and a mass of black hair trailed down her bent back. She strangely reminded Fia of a crow, squawking at passer bys.
"Come see Cassandra! Herbs for charms, spices for dinners, and fortunes for the curious!"
Her beetle black eyes landed on the nearing Fia. They flitted up and down, looking for a way to bewitch this little traveler into coming closer.
"Little dryad, you wear a wedding band. Perhaps Cassandra will make a charm for your bed?"
A blush crept into Fia's face, but it was not paired with the fluttering smiles of a new bride. Her voice was careful and soft. "I'm afraid he passed before the day, but perhaps if you have some herbs good for wild game..."
The crone's hand snatched Fia's wrist, closing around it like an owl's claw. Her brown eyes were feverish with a strange hunger.
"A love, spoiled, eh? What can I pay you for the ring? Name your price."
Fia shivered in Cassandra's skeletal hand, startled by her intensity. "I'm sorry, it's not for sale."
"Come, come, a simple thing like you can't live off parochial charm for long. Gold is your friend. It's a ring, I'm not snatching your memories."
"But you are." Fia tried to pull her hand away, but the cold vise became more insistent.
"Please, let go." The crone was unmoved, so Fia imbued the request with a jagged honesty.
"I need the band. It's a tangible promise. Let's me know he lived."
The hand uncurled slowly, but Cassandra still pinioned Fia with her dark, wild eyes.
"Do you know what a touchstone is, my little dryad?" She didn't wait for an answer. Her creaky voice became a low rattle, the closest thing to a purr she could produce.
"It is a woman who can see what has passed in a soul's life by holding a possession of theirs. Give me the trinket, just to hold, not to keep, and for a price I will tell you of your love."
"What is the price?" Fia asked warily.
Cassandra shrugged. "Whatever you think the my efforts are worth."
"And how do I know you will not just snatch my ring away?"
The crone chuckled. "You don't, little dryad, so I will let you keep it on your rough little hand. Rest your fingers in mine and I will tell what has passed and what is present in your lives."

[Fia]

Under a gentler touch, Cassandra's palms felt like burnished leather. The woman closed her wild eyes and began to unravel a history.

There was a time when Fia would "open" dreams with her Aunt's guidance. When the woman slept well, browsing through her dream was like rustling through a pouch of feathers and polished bits of glass. It was a beautiful, intimate craft. Fia could not inflict it on strangers in good conscience. But this Cassandra could mutely plod through a stranger's memories while sitting in an open-air market.

Cassandra's eyes fluttered but did not open. She gave a mirthless smile and began to speak.
"This ring has seen your heart born, drowned and now it watches you struggle for rebirth. You wore mourning clothes for longer than you needed."
This was a generalization, a poetic one, but nothing to belie real talent. Fia almost laughed. Evidently here naivety was in full swing today.
Cassandra, kept on though. "The Elf came and the village grew to you. It was never too quaint and you were never too plain when you looked at his gray eyes. He asked to marry you in early summer, near the lavender. You wanted an autumn wedding, where all the leaves turn, but your pine stays green. A symbol perhaps?"
This was the plucking of memories that wrapped about Fia's core. It made her blush and rock uncomfortably from foot to foot. Perhaps fictions were to be preferred.
"But autumn is a cruel time for ships. He never came and you were told he died at sea."
"What of him, though?" Fia lowered her voice, "Can you tell me if he had some sort of peace?"
The old crow smiled, showing several bronze teeth. It was a strange face to make when speaking of death.
"Full fathom five, your lover lies. Of his bones are coral made. Those are pearls that were his eyes. Nothing of him does fade, But suffers a sea-change into something rich and strange."
A vision rose in Fia's mind. Her love's body barely suspended above the sea bed, his long white hair rising gracefully with every pull of the tide. Loving grey eyes moldering away, and some bright red sea flower rising to replace them
"I- I- know that. He is gone, but did he know he was loved, did he have peace?" she stammered.

Cassandra's face became a strange snarled smile. She slipped the loose ring off Fia's trembling hand and held it up in the light.
"What if I told you, that I don't see the coral creeping over his bones? That no sea flower fills his eyes? That my song was just a lie?"

[Fia]

Cassandra's face became a strange snarled smile. She slipped the loose ring off Fia's trembling hand and held it up in the light.
"What if I told you, that I don't see the coral creeping over his bones? That no sea flower fills his eyes? That my song was just a lie?"
Something both bright and painful snatched at Fia.
"What do you mean?"
The ring rolled between Cassandra's fingers as she spoke. "Fear, luv. Your man sailed and lived. But he sailed to another harbor than your arms. He feared the roots you could grow around him, my little dryad."
It was mesmerizing, watching the little gold and bronze band move between Cassandra's spidery fingers. Fia could not tear her eyes from it, from all it represented. It was a circle unbroken between them, something complete and full. She did not fear its binding.
"Why should he?" The question escaped in her breath.
Cassandra clicked her tongue and took a lock of Fia's hair in her hand, as if she was pacifying a child.
"Oh my dear, Elves live long lives. Three years is a breath to them, while it is a time to you."
"I can't believe it. I can't bear it."
"Which is it, little dryad? They are quite separate things."
Heavy thoughts weighed down Fia's tongue. Her response was a look deep as a forest. This calm was repulsive to Cassandra's spirit. She could not bear something so still, even if it hinted at pain. Her hand waved dismissingly.
"Go to the docks. Ask about his ship. The fisherman will tell what the sea will not."
Fia held out her open palm. "My ring."
"I'll pay you for it. You won't want it, dryad. It tells a lie."
Fia's voice was straight and strong. "Not on my part."
"I'll give you gold instead, Cassandra. To thank you for your visions."
Cold coins passed between them, but it did not sate Cassandra. Her currency was the power to break the women, to inflict on them what her own heart endured when she was young and almost beautiful. But this little peasant was weathering what torrents this news should bring. No tears, just the tremors of doubt. What galled Cassandra the most was the new firmness in the girl's eyes. The grief had begun to wash away, and the sprit that lurked there now was old and strong.

When Fia began down the road, the dryad heard a cackle at her back and the bitter thrashing of a woman scorned: "Go to the shore and see that three years is a breath!"

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been sitting for a full year. Since no response has been made to create activity I am going to be moving this. If you would like it to be reopened please feel free to PM myself or another admin and they will be able to move it for you back to Scara Brae.