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lotornomiko · 4 years

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Light Grasping Darkness Chapter Six Complete rewrite and overhaul of chapter (Safe for work though for the most part)

Yeah so i wasn’t happy with six (See author’s note for more in depth babbling about that.) and ending up rewriting six from scratch. I hope you’ll agree with me, this version is the better read!

There was an awkward kind of hostility in the room, an uncomfortable tension borne of many a question left unanswered, and far too many suspicions having formed. Especially where she and one pirate were concerned, Emma well aware of the sight that they both made. Hook bereft of much of his leather, save for the low slung trousers hugging his hips to stay in place. His dark hair was wild in its tousled state, a blatant stirring done by a groping of fingers that had been bold and demanding. He didn’t bear any of the other marks though, his tanned skin healed of the scratch marks, and wounds that Emma had given him not even hours earlier.

The same couldn’t be said about HER, Emma well aware and brought to nearly an embarrassed pink fluster. It wasn’t just that her long, blond hair was as equally tangled as Hook’s, or that practically every inch of her that wasn’t covered by the shirt that she had borrowed, was in fact marked in some way. By the imprint of teeth, by the grip of a hand and fingers that had been bruising, to even the invisible but no less tangible memory of a sensual mouth caressing a blatant worship into her flesh. She was hot from the memory, made exhausted from the reality, her trembling legs actually shaking from the effort of the woman remaining upright, Emma’s every muscle seeming sore, and made that way from an overabundance of pleasure.

The very picture of a well ravished woman, it was no wonder that her father was looking ever so much more murderous by the second. With his eyes narrowed and glaring, with his jaw clenched and teeth grinding, David had taken one look at Emma, and had guessed at what had happened. They all had, every last one, from her mother, to the fairy, not a word had been needed to be spoken. The picture that the pirate and the savior both painted, brought to vivid life the sordid, but what they weren’t privy to was the how and the why of it, or the many muddled feelings that had sprouted as a result of it.

Emma was sure that she was turning redder by the second, that shock of vivid color so unlike her to express. The heat in her cheeks was only matched by the burn of her thighs, the savior’s sacrifice one that she had ultimately enjoyed, and one she couldn’t truly bring herself to regret. It was a secret meant to be kept, Emma intent on not revealing to a single soul a certain truth that she herself found startling. That of the connection she had experienced, and the fact that if such a choice was presented before her a second time, that the young woman would gladly do it all over again.

There was nearly not a second she’d take back. Not a thing she would change, not even the reason behind Emma taking the pirate to bed. The murderous command, that compulsion inside him to do as the two evil queens had commanded, Hook resigned to the family he was bid to hunt down and kill, without it, he and the Savior might never have joined together. It wasn’t that he had ever been reluctant to flirt, to try and seduce her right out of her tight jeans, or that Emma had never before been tempted by Hook. It was that all the temptation in the world wouldn’t have been enough for the Savior to give in, to the man, and to herself, Emma’s walls this insurmountable defense that few if any man would have had the patience to attempt.

She had in fact given herself permission this night. To take, and to give in, her surrender born of an absolutely necessity. It had resulted in the most mind blowing and best sex of her entire short life, and with it came a whole lot of unwanted feelings that Emma wasn’t sure she would ever be ready to explore. Even now she tried to mentally shrug it off, to insist that such things weren’t real, and instead were born of a desperation of the situation. It haunted her all the same, those feelings that pulsed a beat within her heart, while the memory of an equally conflicted storm colored gaze, taunted her with questions that had no easy answers.

It was fitting, this night one of parts pain and confusion for all. Emma had a million questions, not just for herself, but for her parents, a story there just waiting to be told. That David kept being distracted by his raging at Hook, wouldn’t stave off the asking for long.

“Let’s all make ourselves comfortable, shall we?” It was her mother, the fabled Snow White, one Mary Margaret who had just made that suggestion. Emma could only flash her a grateful look, her still trembling legs causing her to sway an unsteady step towards the loft’s couch. That ungraceful stumble was the final push needed for even David to agree, he, his wife and his daughter, and the fairy who Emma knew as the Mother Superior, all making themselves comfortable by taking a seat.

All save for Hook, the pirate just remaining in spot as though frozen. There was a noticeable tic in his cheek, and the fingers of his one and only hand, were curling and flexing in a betrayal of his own agitation.

“Ho….Hook…?” Emma started to say, drawing the dark blue intensity of his gaze to hers. Sitting between her parents, the Savior couldn’t help but notice the way her father tensed up, or the fact her mother had quickly reached out a hand, to touch his knee as though to temper the worst of his intended reaction.

“It��It wasn’t his fault.” She said at last, and it was enough to make her father explode, David rising up out of his seat. Mary Margaret went with him, as though she could soothe and control the storm that was brewing inside the man.

“It wasn’t!” Emma repeated. “The queens...”

“The queens may have painted a target on OUR backs, but no one was in control of the pirate when he went after Rumplestiltskin!”

She drew up short at that, lips pressed together in a thin line. Hook has always been about his revenge, though the details around the reason behind it had always been murky at best. He had been good at keeping his secrets that way, the pirate driven and made determined through a mysterious motivating force that not even Emma was fully privy too.

David was still raging, Mary Margaret speaking over him, as though she would drown out the words before the man said something that could not be taken back. Emma found that curious, wondering what drove the woman so. To protect their daughter? Or was it something more than that…?

“If he hadn’t been so selfish, none of this would have happened!” continued David, getting louder and louder by the second. “None of it...not the lives lost, not the people hurt, not my daughter violated...”:

“David!” Hissed his wife, Mary Margaret.

“Hardly violated.” Emma couldn’t keep from blurting it out with a blush. She expected to see Hook smirk and voice a ready acknowledgment, while boasting a knowing twinkle in that sapphire gaze that would have set David off to violence. That Hook had none of the expected reaction was as puzzling as it was surprising, but then everyone was turning to her, David looking furious.

“Don’t defend what has happened!”

“I am NOT.” Emma assured him. “I am OWNINGit. I made my choice when I did what I had to, to buy my family time...”

“Some choice...” scoffed her father, and again Mary Margaret tried to shush the worst of his upset.

“David!”

“Agree or not with what has happened, I would like to know just what went down while the pirate and I were otherwise occupied.” Emma continued. “I deserve that much at least...”

This time it was David’s jaw that clenched, the man not sitting back down next to Emma. Instead he perched on the edge of the couch’s arm rest, primed and ready to jump up at the slightest provocation of the pirate. Mary Margaret sat as a buffer between him and their daughter, her hands on her husband, while Emma pulled an afghan knitted blanket over her mostly bare legs. She couldn’t help sinking back into the cushions, her tiredness not all just physical strain, but also that of mental. She was rapidly running low of the high her earlier adrenaline had been giving her.

Feeling like it might be days before she regained enough energy to want to move off the couch, Emma cast an expectant look at her parents, while trying not to crackle with awareness of the pirate.

“First how about we all have a nice calming tea.” With a wave of her blue tipped wand, the Mother Superior, had a set of mugs appear, complete with the steaming hot tea inside them. Emma gratefully took the offered tea, though no one else did. Not Hook, not her parents, the Mother Superior fixing her with a knowing little smile, as she offered another tidbit of information to the Savior. “There’s a pinch of magic in that tea.”

“Magic!? But...”

“Now now….” The fairy held up a hand as though to stave off the worst of Emma’s alarm and protests. “Nothing bad, it’s just a bit of healing herbs. It will work wonders towards soothing and mending your many aches and pains.” It was a knowing look that the woman gave her, which didn’t help with the feverish heat flooding to the forefront of her skin. She was in sore need of the healing, but didn’t like that fact that everyone knew it too. Knew and were making vivid assumptions about the type of injuries that could be born, in the wake of her sacrifice.

“Er...thank you.” Emma quickly began sipping the tea, to avoid saying much of anything. She was suddenly made fascinated by the swirls of the liquid in the mug in order to keep from having to look at any one person in the room. But there was no denying her level of hyper awareness, from her parents to the left of her, and the fairy to the right, and how Hook was still standing some distance away, an outside to the gathered friends and family intimacy. Was it done out of respect, or out of a wariness of an angry father who was ready to attack at the slightest of reasons? She didn’t think Hook the type to normally CARE what an overprotective father would think or feel, and it was just one more thing that marked him as an outsider to the kind of life she had been trying to create for herself here.

An ill fitting match, there was no room in her life for a man, a pirate, like Hook. Her parents would never approve, her father could never even pretend to be civil, and what of her son? What kind of influence would a pirate be towards a boy that age? It was just another in the many reasons Emma was trying to use to hide from the feelings she had felt when embraced in Hook’s arms.

Troubled by those complex feelings, Emma almost didn’t quite catch when her mother began talking. Mary Margaret was bubbling with a nervous energy, her finger playing a pattern on her husband’s thigh, as she spoke about the relief she had felt to discover David had survived the fall, and the tree that he had slammed into. With a guilty start, Emma realized her mother had thought she had nearly lost both husband and daughter in a span of minutes apart.

Mary Margaret for her part, found just the memory bringing a wetness to her eyes. She had been so, so scared, for Emma, and for her prince charming, David laying so deathly still on the ground before the tree. Holding in her sobs, the woman had run to her husband’s side, frantic to rouse him and almost too scared to try. So pale in the moonlight had the man looked, with a stark crimson coloring over one eye. Trembling fingers had touched to the blood, Mary Margaret beyond horrified, and almost shrieking with fear, when his eyes had abruptly snapped open.

“David!” She had gasped, falling into his arms’ embrace with a sob. He had almost forgotten the night’s earlier events, which had been understandable, considering he had been slammed into a tree! The broken utterances of his wife had left his confused head aching further, his mind struggling to process and more importantly make sense of the memories that had been slow to come back.

“Emma…?” He had said, casting a wild glance around for his daughter. “Emma!?” He too had grown panicked, a fear to match his wife’s, birthing inside him at neither hide nor hair of his child. “Where….where is she!? Where is Emma!?”

Mary Margaret had grown quiet then, an awful, awful look of despair in her eyes. David had fed off of it, his growing alarm making him shake his wife, in an attempt to get a concrete answer to the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Where is she!? Where’s Hook!? What happened….!?”

Mary Margaret had actually flinched in response, and that might have been enough of an answer to some, but not to the concerned father. “Don’t tell me she...”

“Gone!” gasped out his wife at long last. “She’s off buying us enough time to do what we MUST.” She hadn’t gone into details on just what that time buying entailed, but David had imagined the worst almost near immediately.

“He’ll kill her.” He had said in a grim tone of voice, struggling to stand up. He had nearly falenl back down, his wife’s arms going around him for a much needed support. “He’ll take what she’s offering, and then he’ll kill her!” Frantic eyes met Mary Margaret’s. “We have to find her...find them, and we have to do it fast!”

His wife had hesitated. “We...what could WE do against the powers of a Dark One!? A Dark One ordered to kill us...”

“He’s going to kill Emma, you understand that right!?”

Again that hesitation. “Not right away.” Mary Margaret had hedged in answer.

“Not right away!?” repeated David in disbelief. “What does that even mean!?”

“Emma’s got him well in hand, and distracted.” His wife had said. “If we’re quick enough...we might just be able to do something to turn the tide in this battle, so that NONE of us have to die this eve.”

It had been a deliberate choice of words, David having eyed his wife in disbelief. “None?” It had been more accusation than anything. “After what they’ve done?! The people hurt, even killed, the daughter taken from us!?”

“It is not our way.” Mary Margaret had insisted. “Whatever Regina and Cora have done...it can’t result in our souls being darkened.” David’s jaw had set to hear that, the woman, his wife, then trying to drag him along with her. “Now come on! It’ll take magic if we’re to stand a true chance of winning!”

Frankly, it had been nothing short of amazing, Mary Margaret had reflected out loud. “To have the time needed to seek out the only help left available to us? That Regina and her mother had grown cocky, so sure in their victory, and the power of the Dark One that they had commanded.” The little smile then, it was almost a smirk, though the woman still shivered with it.

“We were lucky.” David murmured. “We ALL were.” A meaningful glance was cast his daughter’s way, Emma fidgeting fingers around the mug of still steaming tea. She didn’t much believe in luck, not so much the chance of it, as in the idea of making her own.

“So uh…? What did you do then?” It was meant for the room, but muttered against the mug by her lips, Emma trying to focus on the healing warmth of the liquid working its magic, and not that of the fever brought on by her embarrassment.

“They came to me.” The mother superior had spoken up. “Desperate and in need of magic as well as a miracle, my fairies and I were just about the only creatures powerful enough to stand a chance against such dark magic.” There was an odd smile on her face, one that the fey gave to Emma now. For some reason, the knowing look in those eyes made the Savior uncomfortable, as though the dark haired woman in the nun’s habit, was acknowledging some secret. A secret even Emma herself had not made peace with.

“Er...right...” An unsettled Emma looked away, from that smile, her gaze instead landing on Hook. The pirate was still firmly rooted in spot, his gazed fixed and unwavering, but not on the Savior, but on the fairy. On what else she had, beyond her blue tipped wand, that dagger an almost unconcerned after thought on the diminutive woman’s lap.

“Are you…?” Emma’s brows had drawn together, an awful suspicion birthing to life inside her.

“Of course, fairy dust alone was not enough. Not the amount we had left stored in our wands.” The fairy continued as though Emma hadn’t tried to speak just then. “Not for the war that was literally bearing down on us...”

“Fortunate however, that there was an untapped resource...an abundance of it found in the mines, enough STOLEN magic from our realm, to give a considerable boost to the chance given to us.” It was an almost musical titter of a laugh then, the fairy not so much malicious as amused. “Regina and her mother, made confidant in their acquisition of the dagger, never dared dream there stood ANY chance of defying its command.”

“They got cocky.” breathed out Emma in realization. “Did they even bother to come check and see how their...dirty work was progressing? Or were they content to wait around on the victory they were sure they had been handed?”

“Why get their hands any dirtier...” Mary Margaret mused out loud. “Certainly Cora wouldn’t have minded much, and Lord knows Regina would have loved to personally deal that finishing a touch. But..” She hedged in hesitation. “Would Henry frogive any worse?”

Emma’s eyes snapped open wider, the mug not so much dropped, as set down with a resounding thud. “Henry!?” She was both sacred witless on his behalf, and made furious at both the queens and herself, Emma realizing she hadn’t spent enough time this eve worrying about her son. About his fate, and about whatever ordeal the boy had surely gone through as a result.

“He’s fine.” Mary Margaret was quick to reassure her daughter. A touch accompanied that smile, the woman trying to soothe the worst of her fears. “Ruby made sure Regina never got close enough.”

It wasn’t enough, maybe nothing would ever be, Emma unable to fully relax. It was fear thrumming in her heart, and a guilt, her eyes seeking out the pirate, then quickly looking away again. That he, that anything, could have made her forget about Henry for even a split second? It bothered her greatly, Emma left shaken and made to realize Hook was a far greater distraction that she had ever first realized. One she, and one Henry, could not afford. Not now, not ever, the boy needing a mother devoted in mind and in heart to his care and well being.

The life and the death of it aside, it bothered Emma immensely, that power the pirate had proven. A sexual attraction that had been so all consuming, it had taken a woman who for the past year and a half, had been driven by one single motivation, that of her son and HIS well being, the Savior had forgotten everything to live so selfishly in the moment.

That upset inside her, it left Emma unable to truly focus on the tale being told to her. The words came and went, in one ear and out the other, a dizzying array of details about a fight that had actually lasted for hours, and the details that had gone into planning out the offensive, and the steps needed to put a much needed fail safe in place.

Deaf to so much of it, Emma still came back to herself, as the sound of the pirate’s voice, and the barely repressed menace of his growl.

“Just where are you keeping those two bitches now?”

“Why?” David challenged Hook. “So you can go kill them? I don’t think so!”

“I am OWED.” Hook insisted. “After what they did to me...”

“You did it to yourself!” His anger was almost a match to the dark one, to the pirate, David again standing, with Mary Margaret hanging onto his arm. “Don’t you get it, Hook? Everything that happened this night, it is ALL your fault!”

“Not all of it.” Emma allowed, and both her father and the pirate’s jaws set even more stubbornly, her words acknowledged but not replied to. She sighed at that, and glanced at the Blue Fairy, who was still harboring that knowing expression.

“Not all bad resulted of the night’s horror.” She said. “Darkest though the night be, the light of dawn always ushers in a chance.”

“A chance for what?” Emma couldn’t help asking.

“That is an answer that each and every last one of us, must look deep inside to find.” The Blue Fairy stated. “Different for each and every last one of us, what we do with that chance, is ultimately up to the individual.” Her eyes seemed to bore into Emma, though the intensity of her gaze wasn’t malicious. It still made the Savior uncomfortable, the woman having to turn away from the Mother Superior.

“Even Regina and Cora have that chance…though what they ultimately decide to do with theirs, remains to be seen.”

“What?!”

“If they’re smart, they’ll stay banished.” David grumbled and growled.

“Their greed for power and the pain that they can cause as a result...” began Hook whose voice was more snarl than anything. “Supersedes any wisdom they might have. It is madness to let them live to plot another day!”

“Madness it may be, but it was still the right choice to make.” Mary Margaret told the pirate. “Besides...” Her lips quirked. “The collars strip them of their powers, while crossing the boundary will take care of their memories. Without magic, and any knowledge of WHO they really are, I don’t see HOW we can live to regret this.”

“You’d be surprised.” muttered Hook darkly. Was it just the pirate being pessimistic, or was he right to worry? Emma didn’t know, a shiver going through her as she hoped his words weren’t somehow a dark forewarning of things to ultimately come.

“Whatever might come, we’re ready and we’ll face it together. As family.” David retorted.

“Family...” repeated his wife, her arms going around his waist.

Emma glanced at her parents, then looked to Hook, the pirate this dark and glowering menace that was the opposite of the warmth of the family her parents took strength in. He just didn’t fit in, with them, or with her life, Hook a mess that would send the rest of her neatly compartmentalized components spiraling out of control. So then why…why couldn’t she stop looking at him? Feeling for him? WANTING him? The attraction was still there, might even be made stronger after all they had shared, the physicality of their bodies, nothing compared to the feelings their connection had made the Savior feel.

It was silly, Emma told herself. Silly to think there was any genuine kernel of emotion in a lust that had been born out of necessity. It was just desperation at work, nothing more, or so the woman tried to lie to herself, insisting it had just been sex, an itch scratched, and now that it had been, desire and the confusion of feelings that had resulted from it, would soon fade away. It HAD to, for ALL their sake. She knew that, and yet she couldn’t entirely turn away from it. From HIM, soft sentiments and a real concern bringing her to speak out loud once more.

“What will you do with THAT?” Emma asked the fairy, and there was no need to clarify what the that was. Everyone knew, and everyone turned to look at the dagger on the woman’s lap. The Mother Superior would actually caress fingernails across the name that was carved into the metal of the blade.

“I think that should be up to you.” The fairy had decided, rising up from her seat with the dagger in hand.

“Me!?” Emma all but yelped in surprise, for this was an answer she hadn’t been expecting, and was in no way ready for. “Why?” Cautioned Emma, the Savior making no move towards reaching for the dagger the Blue Fairy was trying to hand her. “Because I’m the Savior?”

“No.’ Came the answer. “Because you did so much.”

“We ALL did.” Emma insisted. “Every one had a part to play in defeating Regina and Cora.”

“True.”A nod of agreement from the fairy. “But such a sacrifice on your part, deserves a special recognition.” The words had the embarrassed heat flooding through Emma harder than before, the young woman not liking the misconception that everyone was having. For it hadn’t been that much of a sacrifice, or even a hardship, Emma having enjoyed herself immensely but unable to admit to it out loud.

The shameful admission bit back, Emma could only stare at the Blue Fairy. Her eyes were so intense, so focused on Emma, as though she was privy to the the young woman’s darkest secrets.

“Emma...” That quiet murmur was voiced by her mother, Mary Margaret shining with warmth and with how proud she was of her daughter.

“Take the dagger.” The Mother Superior encouraged, stopping just short of forcing it into Emma’s unresistant hand. “It is YOURS.” And the man and the responsibility that went with it, Emma shivering, feeling as though the fairy was staring into her soul. Or maybe it was just her exposed heart’s secrets that the woman lay privy too.

The pirate was staring just as hard, but it was not to Emma he looked to, but the dagger. His gaze was unwavering in a hyper kind of focus, the dagger a representation of all his sins, the murder and the mischief, the power and the pride.

It was also a mark of his enslavement, and fact of how easily his will could and had been stripped from him.

“Can you give US a moment?” Emma asked. No one seemed to need to question just who the US was, or even LIKE the idea of it, Mary Margaret frowning, while her father shook his had no.

“That is not a good idea….” His protest was what gave Emma the final push, the exasperated woman snatching the dagger from the fairy’s hand.

“I will be fine!” She snapped, practically waving the dagger with her agitation. “He can’t hurt the one who holds this, right?” Her parents still looked as though they wanted to argue, and it took a cajoling from the Blue Fairy to get them to leave with a stipulation of ten, and only ten minutes.

“What are you even doing?” Flustered, Emma was sure she colored in response to the pirate’s question. She had never blushed this much in her entire life, and now it seemed this night’s events, this man in question, was forcing her to make up for a lifetime of calm composure. The things they had done, together and to each other, the things her parents suspected, the things the fairy hinted at knowing, it was all so mortifying and utterly confusing.

“Time is a wasting.” Hook reminded her, and Emma found she could do nothing but fidget in place, the dagger in her possession, played with as a result, her neatly trimmed nails doing an agitated caress over the metal. It brought a sharp hiss out of the pirate, the man seeming to shiver in reaction. Emma looked at him then, realizing he hadn’t had quite that big a reaction to the Blue Fairy’s touch upon the blade.

“Does it hurt?” She asked curiously, her fingers still moving over the inscription on the blade.

“No...” It was gritted out answer. “It doesn’t hurt...” His dark gaze met hers, something in its depth making Emma gasp, and abruptly stop. It was like there was sin looking at her, sin and a blatant seduction, and she realized that the pirate, already a very beautiful man, had been made even more so by his transformation. She couldn’t quite put her finger on just what had been changed, was it his lips made even more sensual? Was it his eyes so dark and knowing? She couldn’t say, Hook somehow enhanced to be made into a man no woman would be able to resist. Not even the Savior…

Now she was the one shivering, and it took all of her self control to not play with the dagger. She still looked down at it, at the inscription on the metal, the pirate’s actual name, engraved there.

“Killian Jones...” She read it out loud with no real intention behind the saying, and still the magic took hold. The dark, enigmatic pirate, so frozen in place, became this wounded thing, a frantic man made desperate, with a world of hurt coloring his blue eyes.

“Emma, DON’T...”

She couldn’t heed his plea, the power too tempting, her own need too great. There was so much she didn’t know, so much she couldn’t understand without his help, and the dagger might be the only way to ever get the answers she needed, the truth that she so craved.

“Tell me why...”: Soft though her voice was, it was still a command, one backed by the power of the dagger. “Why you did what did...Going after Gold and his power like that...”

“It was never about his power!” The pirate snarled. “I just needed him to suffer, and to die!” Emma flinched at the words, at the way the pirate had shouted out at her.

“Why?”

He tried to hesitate, to hold back the truth, but the dagger wouldn’t let him. “Why do you think?” The terse tone asked. “For revenge. For Milah...and for myself.”

“Milah?” What was the feeling that hit her, to hear him speak another woman’s name, to see the softening the memory of her brought to Hook’s fierce expression.

“The love of my life...” He continued. “And my greatest regret.”

“Regret?”

“Loving Milah killed her...loving her painted a target on her back.” The stark pain in his eyes, a wound that had nothing to do with Emma, and everything to do with this other woman, it staggered the Savior in place. Her lips parted on a trembling gasp, the dagger clutched in hand, as the pirate announced how Rumpelstiltskin had murdered in cold, cruel blood the woman that Hook so loved.

“It’s my fault as much as it is his.” Hook admitted. “Running off with a woman as married as she...”

“Married...” Emma hesitated. “To Rumpelstiltskin I take it?”

“Aye.” There was more to the tale, and every word gritted out was like digging finger deep into an open wound that had clearly never healed. She tore him open with every question, made volatile emotion erupt and in it’s devastating path, there was only a tiredness left behind.

“I never went after the dagger thinking it would give me any power but one. The magic needed to end Rumpelstiltskin's miserable life.”

He hadn’t known, Emma realized. The pirate hadn’t known just what he was getting into, or what it would cost him, the dagger a power that came with a steep price. One he had paid for in spades, becoming a slave to it, and the people that held it.

“I was a fool...” He whispered. “Letting my hate blind me so...”

“Yes...yes you were a fool” Emma agreed. “But I can’t entirely fault you for it...not with so negative a force motivating you...Vengeance isn’t an easy calling to resist...and love lost hurt, no matter the circumstance that saw it taken from a person…”

The gaze that met hers was surprised, as though Hook was made startled by her understanding. She stared back at him, taking in all the hurt and the pain, and with the knowledge she now had cementing the truth in her heart, and becoming the deciding factor in what she would do next.

“Take it.” Emma said, in a clear and confidant voice. “It is yours.”

He was suddenly there before her, right in her personal space, a hand on the dagger, his hook curving round the back of her neck. His eyes so hurt one second, were so dark and unfathomable now, the pirate staring at her, whisper close, lips almost touching hers as he asked, “Why?”

“We all have a chance in us...” Was her answer, Emma fighting not to lick at her own lips. “A choice. What we do with it, what YOU do with YOURS, should be ultimately up to you, Hook. Take the dagger...take it and be free.”

Hand on hers, dark eyes boring down on her, Emma wasn’t sure entirely what he was wanting. Or what she was expecting, her breath going still, Emma actually trembling, waiting, waiting for the pirate to make his move. His own lips parted, and Emma would never know if it was to kiss her, or to merely thank her, the man’s fingers closing around the dagger. At that touch, he then shimmered with magic, Emma having to blink close her eyes from the blinding sight of it.

He was gone by the time she dared open her eyes, not so much as a thank you or goodbye to be had. She almost understood, almost forgave him for the hasty exit, but what she couldn’t abide by was the disappointment in her, Emma longing for the pirate’s kiss.

“What is wrong with me!?”” She demanded out loud, and fell back against the couch. But she didn’t want the answer, Emma slapping a hand against a cheek, as though to knock some sense into her, as she fought against the confusing feelings inside her. It would take a harder slap then that if the woman wanted to forget the feelings and the memories that had been made this past night, Emma sighing, as she realized that the time was almost up. She wasn’t looking forward to her parent’s return, distracting though they might prove to be. David would predicatably be angry, and the Savior would have a hard time explaining her actions, and the choice she had made to set Hook free. But the one thing she wouldn’t do is regret it, not the night, not the pirate, and not her father’s anger, for even that was a gift to cherish and marvel at, after everything she had nearly lost this night.

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The End of the first story in the series.....

Though I feel like series is the wrong word for it. More like duo-logy? Since it’s only supposed to be two connecting stories. (unless something really goes wrong, and a third one ends up happening.) hi...it’s 6/8/2020, roughly seven years after I first wrote and completed Light Grasping Darkness. I found during my recent reread and tweaking, that I really, really HATED six. It was too much of the telling instead of showing thing, like too much recap without real feeling or depth to it, and it felt like an inferior quality to the previous five chapters. I couldn’t leave it alone. I had to try and fix it, and what ended up happening is a complete overhaul and rewrite of the chapter. I don’t know if I suceeded in making it better, but I do like this version best, even if I couldn’t fit in the thing about the birds and how disney didn’t get everything wrong. XD

I’ve been trying to find my notes, and so far haven’t had any luck. I did find an almost three page wip for the sequel, but I am not sure I should...well I am thinking I should start the wip over...the wip in question starts with Emma trying to learn how to use her magic and reflecting on some things. But yeah...really don’t like it…

I do remember from the notes I can’t find, that I intended to have the queens return, though they are not meant to be the focal point of the second story. In fact I think I was gonna have Dark One Hook kill them, so they couldn’t cause any more trouble...but now I sorta think the killing would be the wrong choice to have him do….Hmm….ah well I suppose I’ll figure it out eventually. X_X

Man I think the rewrite made the chapter even longer. :o Also wondering if I can delete the previous version of the chapter and NOT lose my comments for said chapter….Argh!

---Michelle

#OUAT #once upon a time #emma swan #killian jones x emma swan #Captain Hook #Captain Swan #Killian Jones #cs ff #fanfic #fanfiction #Light Grasping Darkness #rewrite of the last chapter

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stars-forever-dwell-blog1 · 7 years

Text

Blinded by the Light: Part Eight

“It was the beach, you understand? The beach? It was too beautiful, too much input, too much sensation. I tried to keep it under control, but it just keeps spilling out and spilling out and spilling out. You see, she’s on an island, and that island is – is perfect. I mean real perfection, you know? I’m not just talking about, ‘Oh, that’s nice.’ It’s the real fucking deal, okay? Perfect. It’s just like a – a lagoon, you know. A tidal lagoon that’s sealed in by cliffs, totally fucking secret, totally fucking. . .forbidden. And nobody can ever, ever, ever, ever go there. Ever. But a few people went, once upon a time – men and women with ideals, you understand? I’m not just talking about the usual traveling fucking wanks. Do you believe in that place?”

“No. But I guess you’re going to tell me that I should, right?”

“It doesn’t even fucking matter what I think anymore. It’s up to you. Ideals, eh? We were just fucking parasites! See, I was the one that was trying to find the cure. Procurer of the cure. And I said to them, ‘You’ve got to leave. You’ve got to leave this place.’ But they wouldn’t listen.”

-The Beach

* * *

So there I was, suddenly, in the upper-middle class suburbs of Calgary, living with my friend Caitlin, her brothers Joe and Rory, and her mom, Janice. It was September. There was running water for showers and teeth brushing and hand washing, lights that turned on for reading, electricity for listening to music and emailing people, a fridge full of food, and no hippies. People were normal. They went to work. They listened. They could carry on conversations. Their clothes actually fit them and they weren’t tie-dyed. They were honest. They weren’t on drugs or lost or trying to manipulate one thing or another out of you.

Looking back, I can honestly say that I don’t know where I’d be today if it weren’t for the endless generosity, warmth, caring, compassion and understanding of Caitlin and her family.

I stayed there for a month, and in that time, Caitlin and I talked for hours on end ‘til the wee hours of the morn almost every night (Gemini and Virgo), at first mostly about Arael and what an idiot he was, but then as time went on we talked about him less, and more about everything else under the sun. She would leave me little notes telling me how beautiful I was; once she made a list of “Ten Things I Love About You,” and left it for me when she went to work. Another time she compiled a list of nice things people we mutually knew said about me and wrote them all down. She was endlessly supportive of me, and constantly telling me how beautiful, smart, worthy and generally awesome I was. And in her love, I bloomed like I hadn’t in longer than I could remember. She was a true friend. There’s this song by Dar Williams I started listening to around this time called The Ocean, and parts of it still make me think of Caitlin and smile. It spoke to me of chasing after Arael to his town on the shores of the ocean, how I tried and tried to make him smile, how I thought he and I were soul mates who would get married someday, but the anger and hurt he carried went deeper than I could ever touch, and were, really, provoked by me, because for a short time I filled the role of the woman in his life – and nothing I did could change that. It was his issue that I never learned the origins of.

I remember when I was living in Marcia’s house of madness, she had this certain book on one of her shelves that for some reason called out to me to pick it up. I did, and read the intro and a bit of it until I knew the premise of it. It was called Away, and it was about a woman named Mary who is walking along the shore one day, and sees a beautiful man lying unconscious in the waves. She rushes out to save him, but once she returns to shore, she is. . .away. She, Mary, is gone, which is a more common occurrence than you might think if you know anything about the Faerie folk. In her place is someone else. I don’t know why, but this story haunted me. I even dreamed about it, and looking back, I wonder if Mary and I were so different.

But over time, the song’s meaning changed for me. It became about Caitlin, moving away from the ocean, the ocean being a metaphor for the watery, unstable, wishy-washy beliefs and reality I had been living with and in for the past year and a half. how I was always bringing my brain to the ocean, trying to find some grounding/earth (Virgo again) but never achieving any, never being able to admit that maybe what I was seeking wasn’t to be found amid the waves or in the sand. I had yet to learn I am an earth-bound mountain spirit, not an ocean dweller. Eventually, gradually, as my heart healed, this song became a cry out to Caitlin, from my heart to hers, wanting her to see the deep beauty, kindness and generosity I saw in her, but she could never see in herself. She was never enough for herself, no matter what she did. I don’t know if she ever knew how much she changed my life.

When I went to your town on the wide open shore

I must confess I was drawn, I was drawn to the ocean

I thought it spoke to me

It said, “Look at us, we’re not churches, not schools, not skating ponds, swimming pools,

But we have lost people, haven’t we, though?”

Oh, that’s what the ocean can know of a body

And that’s when I came back to town

This town is a song about you

You don’t know how lucky you are

You don’t know how much I adore you

You are a welcoming back from the ocean

I went back to the ocean today

With my books and my papers, I went to the rocks by the ocean

But the weather changed quickly

The ocean said, “What are you trying to find?

I don’t care, I’m not kind, I have bludgeoned your sailors

I’ve spat out their keepsakes.”

Oh, it’s ashes to ashes, but always the ocean

But the ocean can’t come to this town

This town is a song about you

You don’t know how lucky you are

You don’t know how much I adore you

You are a welcoming back from the ocean

And the ones that can know you so well

Are the ones that can swallow you whole

I have a good, and I have an evil

I thought the ocean, the ocean thought nothing

You are a welcoming back from the ocean

I didn’t go back today

I wanted to show you that I was more land than water

I went to pick flowers

I brought them to you, “Look at me! Look at them!

With their salt up the stem”

But you frowned when I smiled

And I tried to arrange them

You said, “Let me tell you the song of this town”

You said, “Everything closes at five

After that, well you’ve just got the bars”

You don’t know how precious you are

Walking around with your little shoes dangling

I am the one who lives with the ocean

It’s where we came from, you know

And sometimes I just want to go back

After a day, we drink til we’re drowning

Walk to the ocean, wade in our work boots

Wade in our work boots, try to finish the job

You don’t know how precious you are

I am the one who lives with the ocean

You don’t know how I am the one.

And at the end, the song became a question. Would I go back? Back to the ocean, or stay in the mountains? Would I cling to what I knew now had been the wrong thing for me, or would I step out into the new, the next chapter?

I spent a lot of my time emailing people and talking about the past year and a half, and the future. This one girl I had met who called herself Nej (her name, Jen, spelled backwards) or Neige, and I sent volumes of emails back and forth. She called me Gem, because my legal name is Megan, or Meg, and also in reference to the Lauryn Hill lyrics, “Don’t be a hard rock when you really are a gem, baby girl.” We had met and connected because we both wrote poetry and relished words on our tongues like the finest wine. She was this funky, petite, fiery and watery Chinese girl with a major wanderlust and this writer’s passionate flame burning that drew in me in like a moth. The last time we emailed, she said she was catching a ride to the southern U.S. for the winter. I have no idea what happened to her after that. I still think about her sometimes, but I never learned her last name, so finding her would be next to impossible, I think.

I remember the immense feelings of peace and relief I felt staying there. I would sit for hours in a chair by the bay window in our bedroom and look outside, a mug of chamomile tea in hand. First watching the leaves falling, then the first snowfall. My heart began to stir inside my chest for the first time in over a year. I began to feel again, and it was beautiful. I spent tons of time thinking – just thinking, writing in my journal and just relishing the feelings of safety and warmth that I hadn’t had in forever. Asking important questions of myself: Is it possible to live a life free of the negative influences of greed, indifference and ignorance that are so prevalent in our society – while still living in society? Can I walk that fine line between the grid what lies beyond it, for all my life? Can I not be consumed? Can I retain my individuality, my purity of soul, my ethics and beliefs? Is true freedom possible while choosing consciously to live in a culture that is so mentally enslaved? Can I do it if I get a job, rent an apartment, pay my phone bill? Can I be, as Buddha (or was it Jesus?) said, in the world but not of the world? What is real freedom, anyway?

I met Caitlin’s friends, who wore bright scarves and had a clarity in their eyes that I had sorely missed, went to funky cafes and galleries, and explored the city. With rest comes clarity of thought. Calgary is beautiful in the fall, and it was such a magical, cozy, happy, deeply beautiful month. Even now, it’s the only city I would ever consider living in, and I always have a blast whenever I go there.

Still, despite all this goodness, it hurt that I left B.C., the place where I thought I would find utopia. I still wanted things to work out there, though I somehow knew that going back to Salt Spring wasn’t going to happen. That time was over.

So as the month was drawing to a close, Caitlin and I started discussing what I was going to do. She had offered for me to live at her family’s place, get a job, that whole thing, and a part of me really wanted to. She was going back to B.C. for a month to travel around a bit, then stay with some family in Vancouver. Her family was still struggling through her parents being separated and trying to work things out, and she just wanted to be away, I think.

I was torn; being a shy, awkward person, I really didn’t feel very comfortable with the idea of living in her house if she wasn’t there, despite how awesome her family was, and how comfortable they had made me feel, despite said shyness and awkwardness. But going back to BC obviously made me really wary. Looking back, I think I really wanted to stay in Calgary, but I caved and went back to BC with Caitlin, mostly because of my shyness. And it was a mistake. Big surprise.

We went back to Duncan, which was the town Arael was from, on Vancouver Island. I think that was mostly Caitlin’s idea, though I wasn’t really sure why she wanted to go back. Maybe for closure, maybe she still liked him, I don’t know. She and I had made other friends there as well, so that was the surface-reason why we went, I guess.

I ended up dating a guy there named Mika, who was totally bad for me, and the pseudo-relationship died pretty fast. He was still a virgin and I told him I’d recently had sex for the first time. He really wanted to have sex, and at that time I honestly had zero interest in it. I think I was still processing the experience of my first time, and I made it clear to him that I didn’t want to, at least not yet. But he wouldn’t leave the subject alone, and it got really annoying really fast. Seriously, some guys. If a girl says Stop and you give her some lame excuse like, “But I can’t control myself around you!” you’re just being sleazy and disrespectful. Just so’s you know.

Anyway, Mika had anger issues. His father had anger issues, and his father’s father had had anger issues too. His grandfather had abused his father, and his father had never hit Mika or his siblings, but he was always on the verge of it, as Mika described it. And I could see that in Mika too, and it scared me. His father was a long-distance trucker, so he was gone for the whole time I lived at Mika’s place. One day, Mika told me that if his dad came home unexpectedly and found me there, he would throw me and all my stuff out the front door. Kinda glad I never met him, i must say. So when things ended, after my weird co-dependent all-consuming sadness stopped being an issue, I was actually relieved and over it pretty fast.

Caitlin only stayed in Duncan for a week or so, then she headed off to Vancouver to stay with her aunt and uncle. She became her cousins’ nanny for awhile, and stayed there for a few months. Her parents ended up getting back together, which I know made her and Joe and Rory really happy.

In the meantime, I had ended up crashing at my friend Jai’s place with his brother Kailo and their dad, a really nice guy. Jai had a crush on me, but I didn’t feel that for him, so it was a bit awkward. He took it really well though, and we stayed friends. Again, I was feeling lost and confused. I talked a lot with Jai and Kailo’s dad, and he suggested that I try to go on welfare if I didn’t want to work, and get my own place. That was my tentative plan, but something in me was not cool with going on welfare for no good reason. I was young, healthy, and capable – not a sponge, thank you very much. I really wanted to stay in Duncan because there was this farm there called Sungoma; I’m not sure if it still exists, but it was so cool. Whoever owned it had built a bunch of random small outbuildings scattered around the property. Some of them were on stilts, some were treehouses, and you could rent them out by the month and live in them. There was a communal kitchen and showers. I wanted to live in a treehouse – again. But there were no vacancies, and they didn’t often come up, not surprisingly. My dream was to live in a treehouse and work at Coffee on the Moon, the local funky coffee shop, but they weren’t hiring. So my options were limited.

I don’t remember the exact moment I decided to leave BC and the dream, but I remember calling my dad from a payphone on a cold, rainy late November day and telling him I wanted to come back to Winnipeg, and asking if he would buy me a plane ticket home, one way. I think I was just tired. The dream lay scattered in bloody shards around my feet, and I was too far gone to even be heartbroken or sad about it.

So I took the ferry to Vancouver and stayed with Caitlin for the night before my flight left, feeling completely in a daze, not believing that I was willingly returning to the city I had sworn a year and a half earlier that I would never move back to again. But I think something deeper in me, wiser, more self-preserving said, “You need to rest.” And I heeded it – so I guess I wasn’t as completely stupid as I thought.

That night with Caitlin was awkward, and at the time I was too distracted to analyze why, but later I figured out that she was changing too – she wasn’t satisfied with the flaky hippie life either – and at that point, she saw me as still fully immersed in it. But I was changing too, though it would take me awhile to sort out the dichotomy in my mind and my heart.

So I was at the Vancouver International Airport the following morning, and I remember looking down at my feet and thinking, This is the last time my feet will be on BC soil; the soil of what I thought of as my homeland. It was a heartbreaking, eyes-look-your-last moment, full of confusion, bewilderment and exhausted pain. I spent some time looking at the mountains of Whistler in the distance, drinking in the sight, quenching my soul for the long, mountainless, prairie-filled months ahead. My sketchy plan was to go back to Winnipeg, get a job, stay with my mother, make some money, then go overseas and live happily ever after – or something.

* * *

So what remains to be said? I think I’ve shed it all; I haven’t talked about absolutely everything that happened. Some of it is just too personal or special for me to share. And a couple things that are downright embarrassing. . .But I feel good about what I’ve shared. So how to end it?

There’s a book and a movie based on the life of Christopher McCandless called Into the Wild. It’s an incredibly sad story. To sum it up, Chris was an intelligent guy who, after he graduated college, secretly sold his car and donated all his money and savings for law school to Oxfam International, and disappeared. His family had no idea where he went. He changed his name to Alexander Supertramp and worked odd jobs around the States, saving up to live his dream: to disappear into the Alaskan wilderness and live off the land. Away from the things of man. He made it to Alaska, and did walk into the wilderness, alone. He had barely any supplies with him. He found an abandoned school bus and, using a few books he had on wilderness survival and edible plants, lived there in total isolation for three months, then decided he was ready to go back to civilization. But upon walking out, he discovered that the route he had taken to come into the woods was now impassable; the river had swollen and was running too fast for him to swim out. So he returned to the bus for another month or so, and in the end he died of starvation. He was found two weeks later by a hunter, curled up inside his sleeping bag, weighing only 67 pounds.

The school bus is still there, and Chris’ parents have turned it into a monument to him. They keep it stocked with supplies and food for other travelers who might want to walk into the wild, like their son did.

This story really haunted me when I first read it, and later when I watched the movie. Maybe because I’ve been closer than the average person to doing what Chris did. Because I have tasted that feeling, but I lived through it to move on with my life, to tell that part of my story.

I think people maybe find it romantic what he did, but I personally wasn’t overly impressed. I found him to be hypocritical in his beliefs; he was so adamant about leaving behind everything to do with society, yet he had no qualms about living in an abandoned school bus. And yet on the other hand, he refused many people along the way who wanted to give him money and supplies, even leaving behind winter boots and hunting gear in some cases, because he wanted to be entirely self sufficient. I personally find that incredibly stupid. You’re going into the Alaskan wilderness, man. Why not accept the help you’re offered, and work your way up to living completely off the land? Why not be smart about it? I guess I just have no patience for flaky people who don’t really know what they want or what they’re doing. I dealt with them every day for a year and a half in BC when I was a neo-hippie, and I’m not impressed by any of it. Someone who goes into the woods to live, and is truly clear-headed, capable, conscious, conscientious and mature about it? That would impress me.

Now for some random last-minute stuff.

Hitchhiking

I would never do it now, today. Not for any reason. And I don’t recommend it. On Salt Spring during the protest, one of my friends was hitching one night, and she got picked up by two loggers. They figured out she was one of the protestors, and they drove out into the middle of nowhere and raped her. She never went to the police because she didn’t want it to interfere with the protesting. Seriously. I would have let those guys burn. But back then, I believed that everything my sister did was perfection, foolproof. She told me to send out positive vibes into the universe, and you would always get good rides. And nothing bad ever happened, I have to admit – but I don’t think it was necessarily for the reasons I believed it was then.

She did give me some practical advice as well. Talk, she said. Talk a lot. Make yourself a human being, a person, in the driver’s eyes. They will have a harder time thinking about hurting you if they see you as a person, not just a body, an object. Ask them questions about themselves. And, when all else fails, and you’re in the car alone with a guy who seems creepy – ask him about his mother. I always carried a knife up my sleeve as well, even though it’s been proven statistically that if a “normal” person like me (who has no idea how to fight with a knife) carries one, that person is more likely to get hurt than the person they might be trying to fight off. And seriously, if I stabbed the driver, what would happen? We would end up in the ditch, which would also obviously suck. But my knife served more of a psychological purpose for me: it made me feel badass and tough, and that shows on a person.

There was one time when I truly believe that the driver who picked me up wanted to do something horrible to me.

I was on Vancouver Island; I don’t remember where I was going, but it was a long journey, which 99% of the time means getting several different rides, because most people are only going a short distance. So there I was, in the middle of nowhere, and a guy pulls over to pick me up.

I always would do an intuitive scan of every person who stopped for me; a few times I turned down rides. I would always make very direct eye contact as well, which serves two purposes. One: it tells them that you see them, and you’re not a timid person. Two: you get a feel for a person by looking in their eyes.

So this guy seemed okay, maybe a little stiff and awkward, so I got in the passenger seat, and off we went.

I started my usual banter, asking him where he lives, where he’s going, how his day is, all that small-talk crap. He answered everything I said in short, curt monosyllabic replies. He wasn’t being rude or antisocial; I got the distinct impression he was nervous as hell. He would look over at me every so often with a jerky motion, eyes wide behind his glasses. He didn’t blink much, and he was starting to creep me out. I got the sense that he was having an internal debate with himself about whether he wanted to do something to me or not. Of course I could have been totally reading it wrong; for all I know he was high on acid or just really, really socially awkward.

So after about fifteen exhausting minutes of me babbling on and on in my one sided conversation, I pulled out the big guns. I asked him if his mother lived on the island.

Again, a one syllable reply and a wide-eyed, jerky look.

At this point I was trying to figure out a way to ask him to let me out, since there was nothing around; we were in the middle of nowhere, so there was no tactful way of asking him to let me out. I couldn’t very well say, “Oh look, here’s my stop!” when there’s nothing but grass on either side endlessly in every direction. And I instinctively knew that to throw tact to the wind could be dangerous.

All of a sudden, he pulled the car onto the shoulder of the highway and said abruptly, “I’m going to let you out here.” That was it. There was no driveway, nothing. No reason for him to stop. But he wanted me out of his car for whatever reason, and I was more than happy to oblige him.

As he drove away, I thought to myself that he had chosen not to do whatever it was he had been wanting to do, and had removed the temptation by getting me out of his car. Before I stuck my thumb out again, I sent a silent thank you to the universe.

Mushrooms

I’ve done mushrooms three times. The first time was when I was in high school, with my sister in Whistler, and it was perfect. Magical.

The last time I did them was on Hallowe’en night in Victoria in 1999, when I was a sort-of street kid. I was on the beach in Beacon Hill Park, Mile O, with a group of people, only a few of whom I knew, and none of them very well. It was pitch black, minus our driftwood fire, and there are some parts of Victoria that are really creepy. Hallowe’en. Samhain. All Souls Night. When the veil between the living and the dead is thin. Communication is open. The energy is crackling and otherworldly.

So all of these components added up to create a really bad trip for me. I got so deep, so lost inside myself, I couldn’t even talk. Paranoid. It was horrible. I never did them again. But I learned a few important things from that experience.

Don’t do hallucinogenics unless you’re with someone you trust – someone you can talk to about anything, in case you start getting stuck in your head.

Don’t do hallucinogenics unless you’re somewhere where you feel safe – and somewhere where you are safe.

Be aware of when you do them. Mushroom trips vary depending on whether it’s daytime or nighttime.

Don’t try and do “normal daily activities” while on hallucinogenics. It will just stress you out and probably make you paranoid.

Would I ever do them again? Maybe. If the right circumstances presented themselves.

The Home Underground and My Drum

I love Peter Pan. I love the idea of never growing up. Of, yes, becoming an adult, in that one is responsible and not denying what is – but not losing the childlike part of oneself. To be childlike, not childish. My sister and I both have “Second star to the right and straight on ‘til morning” tattooed on our upper left arms. So I must say that I am drawn to people with a certain twinkle in their eye, the smell of wild woods on their skin and skeleton leaves in their hair. To big trees with vines, pirates and cutlasses, mermaid song and the Neverbird.

During my second summer in BC, I landed in Tofino for a couple weeks, and I loved it. It’s strange that I would love it, because it really is very hippyish in a way. But there’s something about it that drew me in. I felt very at home, very comfortable. Something about it felt right, and I still feel that way now, which is really weird.

I had driven there with a couple cool girls, and we became a little traveling family. That’s the thing with traveling; the people you go with become your people. You bond quickly. And we met some boys there on our first day; they told us they were building a home underground, a house in the woods. I thought to myself, Yeah, they’re just going to string a tarp between some trees and lay down their sleeping bags. Whatever. And I more or less forgot about it. A few days later, when they saw us in town and exuberantly told us that the Home Underground was finished and they wanted us to come stay with them, I wasn’t excited at first. So we all drove out there and hiked to the beach, then into the woods. And I must say I was blown away.

They had found an ancient dead tree with a massive trunk – ten people holding hands could barely reach around it kind of thing – and hollowed it out. They built a huge wooden bed frame and a table inside with driftwood from the beach. They made a mattress and piled sleeping bags on it. They gathered mushrooms and berries from the woods and made epic meals for us all. It was seriously amazing. I stayed there for about two weeks, living in a tree in an ancient rainforest with the ocean and the beach just steps from our “front door.” I am one of the luckiest people alive.

Since there were a bunch of us girls and guys, there was, of course, sexual tension and some minor drama. One guy got a crush on me, but I wasn’t interested. He had a small drum, not a djembe, and it was beautiful in its own way. He had decorated the skin with tribal patterns, and when I was leaving town, he gave it to me. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. He gave me his drum. I still have it, and I plan to reskin it. For a long time it sat at my mom’s place with one of her plants sitting on it, but I have it again now. I needed time away from it. I needed to break from the person I was back then. I needed to change.

My Journals

I have always written in journals, and I keep all my old ones in a Rubbermaid. And it’s full. It was sitting in my sister’s loft for a couple years, but recently I brought it home. Looking through them is always emotional. The thing I’ve noticed most about the ones I kept during my time in BC is that they’re not honest. It’s like I’m trying to convince myself of something. I would always show up at the page wanting to vent, to spill, to overflow, but as soon as my pen hit the page, that glazed we-are-one crap would take over, and it’s just all a bunch of fakeness. There is some beauty and honesty in there, but I think it snuck in in the moments when I wasn’t paying enough attention to smother it, like a tiny shard of crystal or a beam of sun.

Epilogue

In the movie The Beach, near the end when all the hippies run from their island home, shattered and heartbroken amid gunfire, the narrator / main character Richard has this to say of Sal, the founder of the hippie commune in Thailand:

“Game over. But she was never gonna leave. She believed in it all way too much to ever change. So that’s exactly where we left her.”

I have learned a thing or two about “happily ever after”; that in the movies, in that scene where someone rides off into the sunset and the credits roll, their struggles and questioning and pain aren’t over – it’s just that the audience’s time of watching it all unfold has ended. That character’s life goes on. You know that expression “Wherever you go, there you are”? Though I still have some serious beefs with Buddhism, that saying often pops into my head when I look back on my time in BC. Wherever you go, there you are. My problems, my anxiety, my depression, my low self-esteem and self-doubt followed me across the country and across the ocean, and I knew it would all follow me back to the prairies too. And I was finally done trying to outrun it.

It was winter. The stage was set. Running and being fake had failed me. There was nowhere else to turn but within. For the descent.

Inanna was ready to face Ereshkigal.

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ladimelanina · 7 years

Text

There's Hurt and Pain Around My Beautiful Dark Skin

God told me to write this. She said, “You’re entering the next stage in your life and you won’t be able to bring this shit with you. You have important work to do and this baggage will only continue to hold you back from your purpose.”

To those I’m speaking of: I’m not sorry if the way I remember your behavior offends you. These are my memories and my truth from my perspective. If I’m fucked up, broken and dysfunctional it’s because of you, but I allowed it. And being aware of that, it is now on me to change it - to heal it.

Be aware of the internal, psychological, spiritual, and emotional damage you may be causing someone. It’s way more than “kids having harmless fun.” Don’t teach your kids that stupid shit. #sorrynotsorry

All I ever hear these days is how beautiful and rich my complexion is. It was odd to me at first, especially coming from Black people. White people and foreigners have always found me beautiful but with my people, it was like NOW they wanted to be around me BECAUSE of my dark skin when, before college, it had basically been a “black people repellent”. I was in the twilight zone so I couldn’t always tell if they were fucking with me, complimenting me so they could get something out of me or if they were actually sincere. I’ve experienced a little bit of each. I still struggle with being able to tell the difference today because some people get off on being nasty to others for no reason. I have plenty of experience with those types.

Looking back on the first time I became aware that my looks were undesirable to the people in my own community makes me sad for us due to the intense brainwashing into self-hate that we have endured. I was 5 or 6 when an adult, at least 30 to 40 years my senior, said something negative to me about my complexion, all because my front tire accidentally entered her yard as I was falling off my bike. I forever saw her as an evil bitch after that and did my best to avoid her and her evil daughter who is another story altogether. But we lived on opposite ends of the same 4-house unit in the projects where I grew up, so it wasn’t an easy task. What kind of mentality does a person have who would call a 5 year old out of their name instead of helping a little girl who fell off her bike? If my adult self could go back in time, there’s no telling the words I would have with her but also the positive vibes I would instill in that little girl so that she’d be prepared and unbothered by the host of negative encounters to come.

I always loved my family but I hated those overnight trips to visit my grandma’s sister. The colorism was real over there and I was always isolated. The cousins in my age group wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole so I just spent those days sitting alone, watching them play and take time out of play to laugh at me. Nobody ever stopped it as far as I can remember. The last time I saw my great aunt before she passed, she said, “You turned out prettier than I would have thought.” I was stunned and I wasn’t gonna talk back to an old woman so I just thought, “Wow! You actually thought of me as an ugly child and didn’t think there would be any hope for me to one day be a beautiful woman because I’m dark.”

I learned early on that nobody had my back and everyone, including family, had the potential to hurt me. (Naturally, I have trust issues.) I have a great uncle, to this day, that never really asks me how I’m doing or takes much interests in what’s going on in my life but when my lighter-skinned family members come around, he hangs on their every word and action.

The day I knew I was really alone was when I was at my aunt’s house. It was just my cousin, who I consider my brother because we were both raised by our Grandma, and my aunt’s god daughter who was kinda my friend but wasn’t as much a friend to me as I had been to her. I’ve heard so many insults over the years that I’m not even sure what he said - blackie, purple, burnt, crispy, stay out of the sun - just pick one. But it sparked a fit of rage where I lost control of myself and proceeded to beat him into every room on the top floor, crying and screaming hysterically while he laughed and she looked on giggling here and there. It was one of the worst hurts because I thought I could at least depend on him to stand up for me but there were times when he would join in on the ridicule and I’d just be forced to wander off and cry alone. From that day, I would subconsciously embark on a life of not drawing attention to myself. Being sure to keep myself in the background and in the shadows of whatever was going on around me.

I didn’t go to school dances and other events. I didn’t go to my high school prom. I don’t even think I had a birthday party beyond the age of 10. In the 10th grade I would wander around the military base (yea, I’m a former army brat) at lunch time with my discman and go into stores and look at magazines and books because I didn’t have any friends to eat lunch with. I avoided wearing bright colors like yellow, pink and orange because it emphasized my darkness even more. No matter how girly I really wanted to be, I dressed like a boy until I was about 19. I guess it seemed like a pretty good disguise at the time.

Along the way, I learned that insults from boys were usually a one and done situation but the girls, even the ones who claimed to be my friends or hang out with me when no one else was available, would constantly pick at me as if trying to break me down little by little everyday. My “friends” would do it in front of people they were trying to impress. In middle school, my homeroom teacher asked us to bring in old pictures of ourselves to share with the class. As my kindergarten picture (above) got passed around, one girl stopped everything by saying, “Who is this? She’s cute but damn, she black!” If I could slap the shit out of her today I would. I was scared to even try to make friends with other black girls. I got to a point where I just assumed that every time one of them laughed or whispered they were talking about me. That paranoia still haunts me. I easily made friends with boys but any girl that I was friends with was one who approached me first. I really don’t even know how to make friends because I’ve always stayed in my box until I was approached. Any best friends I had in the different states and countries I lived in was usually more like an ONLY friend.

I’m more introspective and reflective than quick witted so I never really knew how to stand up for myself, which is one of my only regrets. My comebacks always came hours or days later when I was alone in thought, in the shower or listening to music. I would beat myself up about not responding then promise myself that next time I would say something and be quick about it. There’s only one instance I can remember where I actually said something. The details are fuzzy, but just the feeling of saying something as simple as “shut yo ugly, bitch-ass up” was soooooo worth it! No one was expecting that because I was known for being quiet and shy and I usually just walked away with my head down. Everybody laughed at him and it felt good. I wish I’d done it more often but it is what it is.

One thing that kinda kept me sane, but still dysfunctional in my isolation and loneliness, was the fact that although no one ever told me, I never thought I was ugly. I always had this theory that I was actually pretty but no one could see it because they were distracted by my skin. In fact I knew I was cute, I was a dark skinned version of my mom and people are always talking about how pretty she is and how I am her spitting image. I have beautiful aunts and handsome uncles that all resemble each other so it was impossible that I was ugly. And my dad, although I never knew him and his family well, my grandma always said he was very handsome. Sometimes before my mom got home from work I would slather on her foundation to change me to her brown complexion for a few minutes and look in the mirror. I didn’t wish I was light skinned but if I could’ve changed it, I would’ve chosen her brown over my black.

I was told by a family member to be sure to marry a lighter skinned man when I grow up so that my children won’t have to go through the same thing I did. I need y’all to see me shine now because no child should have to go through any of that. Wishing they were lighter and having to activate dysfunctional defense mechanisms to get through each day. Allow children to be their unique selves and be proud of it. As I said before it was a grown-ass woman who took the first stab at me, a child; and her daughter inherited her mean nasty attitude. You, the adult, need to change so that your kids don’t model your sickness. Yes, it’s sick and kids only do what they see you doing. As far as I’m concerned I was ridiculed by the children of a lot of sick adults who are now adults themselves and probably teaching the same level of dysfunctional behavior to the next generation. STOP IT! Heed your grandma’s age old advice - If you ain’t got nothin nice to say, keep you damn mouth shut.

It’s been a rough road for me emotionally but if I hadn’t had to build myself up from the very bottom of self-esteem, worth and confidence I might have turned out to be a conceited little asshole that believed that I had to put others down in order to assert my own self-worth. I’m multi-talented, I’m nice to everyone I meet, I’m interested in the uniqueness of others, and it may be cliche but I care about making the world a better place. I’m proud of the person I’ve become thus far and I’m still learning and growing. This is just the beginning.

Although this really is only the half, a gigantic weight has been lifted from my soul. I think I can move on now.

Thanks for reading!

#deeplymelanated #lifestyleart #darkskin #therapy #melaninpoppin #selfesteem #ladimelanina #woman #women #queen #goddess #pain #childhood #colorism #black #buyblack #blackwallstreet

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