as much as I like being on my own

this isolation is killing me

Elan/ somewhere in time

It was as if time had frozen for her; Elan was so still for fear of moving to cause anymore noise to reveal what could be amiss behind the shut market stall. What felt an eternity of time was no more than half the time it takes to run to the shoreline from there. But also time froze in her mind even as it was time was still continuing in reality. 

After awhile she moved slowly, testing her limbs as she trembled. Tested her ability to soundly move well enough to disengage what was left of the dead weight upon her. By sheer will, eyes closed, she released the weight soundlessly and forced herself to move away quick, to search for the objects she had dropped during their scuffle….then to get her mind focused on what to do next. 

The sun would not be rising for awhile. She could tell by the moon. Her plan had been to change her clothes into the disguise she had now stuffed in her travel bag that had a long strap. That had been what she had first meant to do. Until the noise had awoken Gwydion. It occurred to her that now was the time to change her clothes. 

She had repaired enough of Gwydion’s trousers to fashion herself a similar kind, and once free of her long robes and the trousers secure, she slipped on one of Gwydion’s old shirts she had recently helped herself to and had altered to fit herself and on went the black overcoat robe and having watched him enough, knew how to mock the movements of a Druid in meditational prayer.

She tested herself now. She started to walk the width of the shut up market stall. But then she tripped and she let out a cry.

When she turned she saw someone come through the drape by the stall door. It let in the moon’s light and illuminated a giant burly man carrying an ax, hair like a white horse’s mane and a thick beard.

He stared at her and took in the scene

Elan had the sense she had seen him somewhere before 

“Wat is der bard? Bist ferwûne? kom! gau! foardat jo fûn wurde! Ik bin Willem!”

Elan/intro to An Alternate Story; port of Le Havre

The Market Stall

At first Elan stood there with a kind of horror looking at Gwydion ….it was an accident. But who’d believe her?

They had a struggle. He had caught her trying to escape and things got messy. They were by all his potions. It was the middle of the night. 

She had planned it; things packed; traveling light and it was a full moon with just enough clouds for cover. Only….something unexpected happened. There were sounds coming from the harbor that were loud and carried across the market stalls and things happened fast. 

Gwydion, her Druid stepfather awoke and lit a candle illuminating her plot to escape. He caught her by her long dark woad mixed with indigo blue robe. And as they struggled, she fought with the might of desperation to be free of him; if not for herself than she told herself to fight for her mother whose fate he had doomed by her own eyes. 

It was the kick. Part caught in the robe but twice as hard of a kick which sent them both flying into the table with all the glass potions and she fell forward onto him, and they fell backward with him below her, her robe caught and forcing the doomed impact to the Druid. 

And afterward…. she stared a long time wondering what to do no longer seeing the shrouded prone shadowy outline of her nemesis 

* yes, update of Druid’s name is now to be canon to the story loge (Gwydion)

I think in my case the personality of INFJ came about as a reaction to experiences 

I think I went inward 

I don’t think I was like that at first 

Electra’s dictionary Noir/a coffee déjà vu

I suppose I must have got lost in thought staring into the vastness of the street, how fast things move— don’t they?

why must they?

Josef shocks me out of my fugue by appearing suddenly next to me. The Viking ambush again. But he holds a cup of coffee and offers it to me,

“sorry, it’s not instant, he’s dragged out the French press, but there’s honey in it, you see I remembered—and some of the almond milk I saw in there, but—no, Jörn made it for you.”

I don’t look at him right away. I feel guilty and smile and take the cup…. Folkmoot ….? I get that feeling again …. Like that time—the first time in Jörn’s kitchen; he handed me the cup and ….I felt it…. that sense of an overlay of ….lives…. Josef ….he was there —then ….that’s what ….it was that day at the barn house—I forgot I saw it then too

I shudder but manage to suppress it and sip the coffee and look up at Josef 

“We never had that conversation,” he tells me in that wise old voice which he exaggerates because he can’t resist the drama 

“Which one?” I ask him

“You have been angry at me,” he says this as if no time passed since he’d last said it

Had I forgotten? 

His eyes, when his twinkle, are not the same as Jörn’s —Josef has a more Father Christmas about his whereas Jörn’s twinkle is always —well, noir ….

“Because you pretended to like me and it was just to get me legally hitched to your son for your opera house,” I tell him this without any drama at all. I state it because this is what happened. 

I hear Jörn laugh from the coffee pot as he brings two more cups over to the table; he places one in front of Josef who has settled himself at —the head of the rectangular table. Of course. Folkmoot, I think ….

But blurt,

“Jörn, did Gerald tell you I was back?” turning to Jörn as he—presumptuously— sits beside me on the kitchen bench that parallels the full length picture window 

But now it is Josef who laughs and says,

“you think he needs a psychic to tell him you’re back when he’s an international spy?”

“I’m an ‘intelligence decipherer’ not a spy, papa —is that what you went by?” Jörn replies 

Josef laughs,

“I’m a respectable symphony conductor, that’s what it says on my tax papers….pass the socker.”

Electra’s dictionary noir/Vad är det här för sorts kaffe?

….but no I am not ready for this 

      still spinning from ….everything 

          But I don’t have the energy to fight two Vikings so, I step away and let them pass and by now even Josef knows the layout ….so we go without saying to the kitchen where I was making myself coffee 

I look at it and walk away and go to the window instead. I sit in the window seat and just stare out into the vast abyss of the city but I do hear Jörn exclaim over my coffee. I hear his indignant Swedish gasp and say,

“Vad är det här för sorts kaffe? Jag kom hit i tid, hon dricker snabbkaffe – hon har verkligen sjunkit ihop, stackars duva!”

It just sounds like a scene from Fanny and Alexander to me so I just sit there staring as I hear him rummaging around in the kitchen. I put my head into the glass and close my eyes listening to Josef and Jörn bicker 

and …. just whisper to myself, “tack så mycket….”

Electra’s dictionary Noir/ let sleeping bats lay

Electra’s dictionary Noir 

It seems as though I confuse Dream with day dream because I am sure that the light flares that stain my eyes are real and alive and glowing bats 

I sit bolt upright in bed in a sudden cold sweat staring at the walls as ….the dream image ….fades and subsides ….into shadows ….shadows with wings 

What is that? I find I wonder as I follow the winged black shadows that infest my night walls —as I feel the floors vibrate 

I get up and walk to the window that overlooks the city street from the vast distance above. The window is old with the French door arches that reach up to the ceiling. There are two sets of these that are covered in heavy mauve velvet drapery; I pull these back along with the Belgium antique lace curtain sheers 

The moving lights come from the cars and trucks but what causes the bat effect? It must be something else down there, I think, and move closer to the glass to look down. 

It is not possible to see the cars, they are dots from here and the dashes are trucks 

I open the window a crack to look out. There is a small ledge; a very narrow balcony not really meant for standing, but I can open the window enough and lean out

But the air is damp chill and now so is the bedroom …. but …. 

No I do not imagine music —I hear it and it strangely catches me for a moment as I had not expected it. And not ready for it. 

I go back to the bed 

I want to hide. From games. I just want real ….

    The shadows that move like bats mix with the music and I say to myself —not ready; not now—and maybe never 

I get up and shut the window and find my silk blindfold to shut it out

****

It is some time after eight in the morning when I hear a sound I don’t recognize 

I go from the kitchen where I am making coffee to find where the sound is coming from; I’d thought it was my phone but I don’t have a tone like what this is. I go through the lounge area and down the long hall to the entrance and slowly realize the penthouse has a doorbell! I’ve never known cause for it until this moment. 

It is still going too ….it is not a classic doorbell sound, you see, this has a techy sound amplified to sound like Tibetan percussion. I knew about the peephole in the door; again, never had much need for it as no one has access to the penthouse unless it’s someone like Illya 

I carefully lean to peek through it

“Shit!” I whisper aloud and jump back —there’s a mirror by the door and I look like I just rolled out of bed, I fix my hair and straighten my shirt and jeans

“Duvan?” I hear through the door 

Josef 

I take a deep breath and open the door 

“Josef?”

He also looks slightly like he rolled out of bed but chipper and healthy despite that in his Nordic blue bathrobe—he’s holding something in his hand which now appears to be a measuring cup 

“Urm—“ he says

“What’s going on?” I ask him

He raises the cup,

“could we borrow a cup of honey?”

“You came up to the penthouse to borrow a cup of honey?”

“Elsa is making honey cakes,” he tells me

But it is an obvious lie and I try not to laugh —and then what? 

The elevator opens and —Jörn sweeps out,

“Papa! I said to leave it! Why must you always interfere? I was giving her time!”

“And you think serenading her through a soundproof floor will conjure her passion?” Josef turns to Jörn