Dark Stories and Spider Goo

[Jim Roberts]

[Feb 6 afternoon – The Godcarvers]

> “I doubt you’ll find THIS tale worthy of mirth,” Laquendi warned
> flatly.
>
> “Bring it, sweets, you KNOW I love a challenge,” Tramma shrugged.
> Laquendi did not seem to yet understand a truth that Tramma had
> learned in her studies and her life years before. When faced with
> horror, macabre humor was a quite rational and very common reaction.

And so Laquendi brought it, and narrated. And as the bodycount grew,
Tramma did indeed grimace. Though perhaps not for the reasons that
Laquendi had predicted.

Long before the tale of blood had concluded, Tramma gently interrupted.
“Sweets, while this horrific story IS educational for me, it strikes me
as perhaps as much as the third or fourth most impressively ghastly
recounting I’ve heard or read. By comparison Cabor’s Last Sortie was
almost a pleasure cruise; the Eiliswhari Death March a walk in the park.
To my mind, the problem is in no way is this retelling helping YOU. Is
it not time to break the control the past has over you?”

Laquendi looked troubled, half shaking her head in doubt, but the bard
went on relentlessly. “You are your mother’s daughter, not your mother
herself,” Tramma insisted. “You are not bound to her fate; reject her
and hunt her memory forth from the forests of your mind! Your time has
come. You must face that same evil, and you *will* defeat it. Yes, your
past IS your past, but it need not DEFINE you. You cannot HIDE from your
past, nor should you even try… but you also need to be able to put it in
its box, and only let it out when YOU want to.”

Laquendi could not help but notice that some of the bard’s words – and
imagery of the hunt – oddly resonated, as if the dusky elf had heard
and experienced something rather like them before.

Tramma, meanwhile, continued her thesis. “I have been watching you while
you tell me this, and if you ask me, what you need to hear isn’t pithy
praise that you did your best. I mean, how the hell would *I* know, I
wasn’t there, and who is Tramma the Tramp - or ANYONE - to judge you
anyway? Only you have that right, but cut yourself some slack, sweets.”

“It has been less than a fortnight since I have been, for lack of better
terminology, reassembled in mind and body,” Laiquendi reminded the bard.

“All the more reason for a fresh start, isn’t it?.” Tramma was having
none of it. “What got us here was listening to Mother Superior the
kobold priestess tell us her story,” the entertainer reminded her
friend. “Yes, there are resonances, but you are Laquendi, not a kobold
priestess who inspired her people and founded a new religion.”

“While I killed, or assisted in the killing,” Laquendi observed grimly,
“of all members of House Telos and escaped only because of a stripe of
luck in a miscalculation of Ilharess Everhate.”

Tramma shook her head at the elf’s pronouncement, beginning to strongly
suspect that Laquendi was rather badly missing the point. Resolutely,
however, the bard continued on, ticking points off on her fingers. “The
circumstances were entirely different. ‘Mother’ Kobold already had a
cadre of Kobolds willing to consider the possibilities of what she was
saying as well as the Dwarves feeding her the information.” She tapped
one finger with the index digit of the opposite hand, and raised it to
signify her next point. “What you told me makes it clear you had
precisely none of that.”

Another finger went up. “Many indications lead me to just bet you had no
friends, including, (in my experienced and discerning opinion) quite
awkward responses to friendly overtures. We’re working on those awkward
responses now and the no friends part is way behind you; but Laquendi,
you still got issues. Agreed?”

“You are stating an axiom of my life,” Laquendi observed dryly.

“Yeah, I thought so,” Tramma sighed in resignation, then glared at her
hands a moment before finally waving them indifferently. “Damn, lost
count, math is hard. Anyways, if *that* weren’t enough heartbreak to be
a total downer, it sounds like you had a cut-throat family that would
make even Lady MacBeth recoil and repent. THEN just to put the slimy
icing totally on a shit cake, no one around you who could be considered
by those up here in the sun-drenched world above to be anything but evil.”

That observation, while crudely put, was manifestly true. But the bard
was not yet done. That was only to be expected when you found yourself
getting advice from someone with vast practical experience in social
interactions as well as an encyclopedic knowledge of far more subjects
and forms of art than many laymen would consider wise or entirely sane.
For all her charm and wit, from many conventional viewpoints Tramma
herself tended to rather confirm that assessment.

“C’mon, Laquendi,” Tramma urged, her tone beseeching as she caught the
dark elven woman’s gaze. “You KNOW that lovely kobold woman had not just
those beastly dwarves but SOME sort of divine patron pulling for her. As
well as a LOT of uncanny luck, if indeed she’s not quite naturally
shaded a lot of what happened in her memories. I have no idea whether
ANY of the wild legends I have heard about the UnderDark have the
slightest resemblance to the reality you lived, but it sure does not
appear from your story that *divine* guidance was sent your way. If
anything, quite the opposite; by all accounts the other end of the ol’
good-evil spectrum tends to dominate down there, amirite?”

“That would be an understatement,” allowed the Drow. “In evil societies
where everyone is guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world
of murderous sociopaths, the only final sin is stupidity.”

“You made it out alive,” Tramma pointed out. “And you already said
‘reassembled in mind and body’, which even without details which are
none of my business unless or until you choose to share sounds
encouraging. Some of that luck or divine interest or whatever that our
new kobold priestess friend kept getting showered upon her has come your
way, right?. I gotta figure this isn’t the only time, either. You almost
had to get some breaks along the way to have survived ‘six human
generations’ of what you so vividly portray as something of a living hell.”

“True,” the Drow admitted. “Duchess Sinope was a find and a great help
when I needed it.”

“Maybe you are not yet ready to hear this, but when have I ever been shy
about speaking my mind,” the silver haired head nodded to indicate firm
determination. “Your triumph against that evil society will be MORE
complete when you can bring yourself to live and love and utterly reject
their tenets. You have *earned* a level of peace, joy, a LIFE, and
contentment, just like ‘Mother’ kobold.”

Laquendi’s expression was noncommittal, but slightly quizzical. “No one
is owed life, or contentment. How can you be so sure?”

Tramma blinked. Not a single hint of her inner turmoil could be seen,
she was FAR too experienced and skilled at presenting only the face to
the world she wanted others to see, rather an essential skill for a
performer. Inside, the bard’s mind was roiled, as it had been many times
before in her eventful if young life. Not at the question about how she
could be so sure. No, what bothered the bard was Laquendi’s statement
BEFORE the question; that sort of nihilism simply had no place in
Tramma’s life, even if it WAS trendy among far too many overeducated
fools in academia. Internally, she wondered how someone with this life
view could be a leader among the Keeryte Sisterhood; she admired the
Sisterhood and had studied what was known of their philosophy, and she
was quite certain they would be just as disconcerted as she was. But
externally, she simply addressed the question put to her, for now
shelving the previous statement.

“How can I be so sure?” Tramma echoed the question. “Faith, of course,”
the chanteuse told her a bit wistfully, shaking her head thoughtfully.
“Not just in the divine, and the quite explicit promises made in that
realm, but in EVERYTHING. A lot of other solid facts which can be
observed or learned; history, how our society works, all of it. Backed
up by an extensive knowledge of history, drama, literature, music, and
several other fields in my case, though there are other ways to get to
that sort of belief.” Tramma shrugged again a little helplessly, and
suggested, “a discussion that will just have to be ongoing and expand to
people like Alaelia or the Abbot or Erin; the Vowsisters, even ‘Mother’
or one of the tribal Medicine Lodge - whatever works for *you*. It is a
very personal journey, and while I can bear witness to what I have seen,
experienced, and believe, that would be as you said in another context
earlier ‘inefficient’ for me to presume to guide your own exploration
when there are many better choices of mentor. I’ll make one last
observation that should illustrate clearly why my oddball perspective
should be balanced by consultation with someone who takes a more
conventional approach.”

“Now, feel free to laugh.” Tramma hesitated a moment quite obviously
considering her next words carefully, then shrugged as she began to
explain, “I concede it is perhaps trite to couch this thought in
dramatic terms. Yet I’m afraid that is how my mind works, and a good
example why for the really big questions you need to consult people with
more appropriate mindset and training. Artistically, dramatically, this
volume of your life *requires* that uplifting sort of denouement to
acknowledge your escape and triumph and defiance of the odds, putting it
all in perspective. Probably even more importantly, to give you closure,
and let your choices going into whatever the next chapters hold create a
sound footing no longer haunted by what happened to you a hundred years
ago or more. To my mind at least, time to let it go, those battles are
over other than the lessons learned - can you see what I am trying to
point out?”

“You certainly have given me a lot to consider,” Laquendi noted levelly.
“An at least plausible interpretation. While I will do the work to move
ever-forward to leave the ugly past of UnderDark behind, I do fear there
will always be echoes reverberating through my thoughts. I suspect your
background was by comparison - and I mean no insult by this - too
sheltered to fully comprehend what I faced.”

“I’ve never seen the point of that sort of competition,” the bard
observed mildly. “Just remember that you do not know MY story, and
direct painful experience is hardly the only path to understanding.”
Tramma took a glance toward the chimnea, and noted, “spider goo cleanup
is calling, but c’mon, Laquendi,” “you DO know I just spent several
years and a significant chunk of my life at a conservatory for music and
the performing arts.”

Tramma shook her head in amusement. “If there is one thing I got outta
that, it was how to deal with,” Laquendi saw her take a preparatory deep
breath, then without pause recite quickly, “prima donnas, goths, emos,
wild wolf-girls, punks of all sorts, nerds, (forgive the expression)
gypsies, tramps, thieves, critics, rowdies, roadies, rascals,
scoundrels, villains, knaves, devils, black sheep, bad eggs, beggars and
blighters and ne’re do-well cads!” Her hand rose dramatically and she
finished, “aye, but they’re all loved by their mummies an’ dads, and
usually won’t shut up about it. You fit in that spectrum SOMEWHERE,
after all, just like me.” She shook her head and finished in a tone of
despair, but the merry, mocking conspiratorial look she shared with
Laquendi belied the expression when she groaned, “the lot o’ them
hearties drive me to drink sometimes, yo ho.”

With that, the discussion wound to its end. “Well, you’re HERE now,
having fallen in with Keerytes, musicians, Wild Women, and all sorts who
are all VERY glad you’re with us. And hope to help you STAY that way, or
at least, as long as you’d like.” Tramma grinned, and announced, “we’ll
show ya a good time, girlie, just don’t hold the headaches against us,
we’ll be suffering right alongside you.”

The bard glanced up, and flowed to her feet. “And now, I’ll bet this is
ready.” Gingerly, she tested the temperature of the smaller kettle of
water heating up atop the ‘chimnea’. “Yup! Good and warm!”

Working together, the two silver hairs, aided with some towels to avoid
scalding, mixed a healthy amount of both the hot water and the cold into
the collapsible tub until both agreed that the temperature was quite
pleasant.

“Now,” Tramma offered, “would you like some privacy to disrobe?”

Laquendi again considered the question, and shook her head.
“Inefficient,” she repeated. “Particularly if we are to fit two.”
Illustrating her meaning, she began to unlace her top.

Tramma grinned. “Well, you’re certainly right there! It WOULD be a lot
more efficient for me to wash the last trace of that spider goo out of
your hair if I was in there, too.”

And a moment later, they were, and after a fine washing, Tramma finally
was able to achieve her wish and gently ply a hairbrush through
Laquendi’s towel dried hair.