Time on my side (19 June to 10 July 2018) – Taffeta
Jul 14, 2018 10:44:08 GMT
mattwilkin, Nowhere, and 2 more like this
Post by Malri 'Taffeta' Thistletop on Jul 14, 2018 10:44:08 GMT
1495 DR, 19 Kythorn
‘But Malri, dear,’ Rose is saying, ‘how can time pass inside a mine but not outside it?’
Taffeta looks up at the huge sky for a bit. Daylight is fading and she can see a few stars. It feels good to be outdoors. ‘It’s… it’s hard to explain, Rose. It isn’t that time didn’t pass outside, but we kept sort of… going back to the same time, before the time started passing… Hold on, let me get my head straight.’
Nerry comes out with a tray of drinks. ‘Now then, my apple-blossom, you haven’t started telling Mam your stories without me, have you?’
‘Would I do such a thing? I was just explaining why I’m tireder than I should be.’
‘I think your wife’s had too much sun, Nerry: she’s saying she was in the mine longer than she’s been gone for!’
‘You what now?’
‘Oh you two! Just let me get my thoughts together and I’ll tell you.’
Somewhere out of town a bird is unfolding its song into the hot evening air. ‘What happened was,’ Taffeta says slowly, ‘we’d be inside the mine, doing this and that, and then we’d feel this tingling and suddenly we’d be outside the entrance again. And however long we’d spent inside, it would still be the same time as when we went in. And when we’d go back in, anything we’d moved or changed was back how it was before. It was like all the time we’d spent in the mine just hadn’t happened at all.’
‘So, wait, I think I’ve missed a bit,’ says Nerry. ‘Why were you in a mine?’
‘Oh, sorry, love, I’m so muddled I’ve got it all out of order. There was this gnome, Kerfuffle. He’s new in town and he’s bought this old mine but never actually been there. Wanted us to go and check it out because the folks he sent before us were too scared to go in. So off we went, and we were poking around this mine, and then suddenly we pop up outside it again, like I said, and when we go inside again it’s like we were never there before. And there was another funny thing – we couldn’t take anything out. Sara found a note on a desk and took it, but when we popped back outside the mine she didn’t have it and we found it back on the desk inside again.’
‘What a thing! I’ve never heard the like!’ exclaims Rose, sipping her cool cider.
‘But how did you get anything done if it was all undone again?’ asks Nerry.
‘Well, it’s odd to say, but it seemed like we got to stay in the mine longer and longer each time before we got put back at the start. So at first we kept running out of time, but after a few tries we had explored all the caves and chambers. Except there was one door that had a magical lock, and we knew from that note there were three keys hidden somewhere. On the next few tries, we found them: one was in the mouth of a huge plant that tried to eat us, another was in a room that filled with water if you touched the floor, and the last one was in a kind of machine. A few tries more, and we’d worked out how to get each key, but we kept running out of time to get them before we got pulled back to the beginning. Well,’ Taffeta corrects herself, ‘the others did most of the “working it out”. Sara especially, and that young bird fellow, Crow Rustle, they’ve both got good heads for this sort of thing.’
The stars are shining clearly now and the sky is dark. Time is passing. Taffeta has never been so glad to notice time passing.
‘Well, we had a few scraps and scrapes but once the others had finally got it all planned out, we seemed to have enough time to get everything done. We got the keys and unlocked the big door. But then things got even stranger.’
‘Sounds like we’ll be needing another drink, Mam!’ says Nerry, refilling Rose’s empty cup and then his own.
‘Go on, Malri,’ says the older woman, trying to be more encouraging than her son, ‘please tell us about it.’
‘Thanks, Rose. Well, at first I thought things were back to normal – we were in a little library. But then we went through the next door and there was a white dragon! Or at least, it looked white at first, but later it seemed to change colours. And Gabriel, our human friend, was gone. Instead there was another hin, a fellow named Griffo. I’d never seen him before but at the same time I felt like I had, like it made sense for him to be there. Anyway we hadn’t time to worry about that – the dragon went for us! Things got quite nasty for a while but then there was the same tingling feeling we’d had before, only this time we didn’t end up outside the mine, we were in a burning building. And no sooner had we climbed down into a safe space under the floor than we were out in a field with a unicorn and talking rabbits who asked a riddle; and when Crow answered the riddle, we popped into a dave filled with rats, then back to the field, then back to the cave.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t just bang your head, love?’ asks Nerry.
‘Oh, give over, you,’ Taffeta responds gently. ‘Well, the next strange thing was that we found our way back to the burning building, except it wasn’t burning and it looked like it never had been! And then we were shunted off again, to a rope bridge over a ravine, which we all crossed except Barden. He was last and it snapped under his feet, and the, pop, we were all back on the side we started on and the bridge was whole again. And there was Griffo… I mean, he’d been there all along, since the dragon, but this time it felt like I was meeting him for the first time. It turned out he’d been there for weeks or months, sent by the people who owned the mine before Kerfuffle bought it. He’d got stuck, said every time he tried to cross the bridge he just reappeared on the same side. Well, we tried crossing the bridge again and it snapped under Barden again, and this time we turned up back in the library!’
‘Brandobaris’ bag of tricks!’ says Rose into her cider. ‘Whatever was going on?’
‘Well, I hadn’t a clue, but Crow told me later that he reckoned were were getting pushed back through time, so we kept ending at the beginning of where we’d been before.’
Nerry splutters. ‘Come again, love?’
‘I don’t know how to explain it. It was the oddest thing. But anyway we went through the library door again and, I don’t know why, but the dragon was asleep this time. Behind it we could see another door and three floating balls in front of it, different colours. I was stumped, I tell you, but Crow and Griffo and Sara managed to figure it out. Seems one of the balls’d make you get older if you went near it, another would make you younger, and the one in the middle just stopped you in your tracks. Well, no sooner had Barden heard this than he tried to blast one of them to bits! Didn’t manage it, but he knocked them in all directions and woke up the dragon – but, as luck would have it, one of these globes rolled towards the dragon and shrank it until it was just an egg again! So we made short work of it and found a key to the door in its little hoard, along with a bit of money and a few other useful things.’
Rose’s eyes and mouth are wide open. ‘I must say, dear, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you were making all this up to trifle with us.’
‘Not a word of a lie, Rose, I swear. I wouldn’t have the wit to make this up!’
‘Well then, love, what happened next?’
‘Not a lot more. Through the door was another old part of the mine with a cart on rails over a big bridge. I think by that time we all felt a little scrambled because the boys all jumped into the cart and wanted to go for a ride, and without thinking I gave them a push. I guess the bridge couldn’t take their weight because it broke apart and tipped them all into the water below. But we got them out right enough, and found a way out. And this time we did manage to bring things out with us.’
‘So you’d broken the magic of the place?’ Nerry asks, peering into his cup to see whether by any chance there’s some more cider hidden somewhere inside it.
‘We hoped so, but it seems not. We went around to the front entrance again and it was still playing the same tricks as before. So we came back and told Kerfuffle what was what – or at least as much of it as we could explain.’
‘How’d he take it?’
‘Not too well at first, when he realized it was no use as a mine. But the others suggested some clever uses he could make of a set of caves where time goes in spirals, so by the end he was in quite good spirits again.’
‘I wonder what he’ll make of the place,’ says Rose.
‘Whatever it is, I’m sure I can get us an invitation!’
It is truly night-time now, and getting a little cool under the stars. Nerry is gathering up the cups. ‘So how long do you think you were in there, love?’ he asks his wife.
‘Honestly, Nerry,’ Taffeta replies, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t seem to get tired or hungry or thirsty, or if I did then it went away again whenever we were pulled back to the beginning. But to do everything we did… it must have been hours, maybe days.’
‘Your life, Malri… I never even imagined such things.’ Rose starts to make her way back to the house.
‘Neither did I, Rose. Neither did I.’
A little later, Taffeta goes to sleep thinking of how strange her life has become, and how strange it is that it seems almost normal now. And of how much harder it would be without the weird and magical townsfolk who seem to take it all in their stride.
The next morning she sets off into town to make sure Gabriel made it home safely.
‘But Malri, dear,’ Rose is saying, ‘how can time pass inside a mine but not outside it?’
Taffeta looks up at the huge sky for a bit. Daylight is fading and she can see a few stars. It feels good to be outdoors. ‘It’s… it’s hard to explain, Rose. It isn’t that time didn’t pass outside, but we kept sort of… going back to the same time, before the time started passing… Hold on, let me get my head straight.’
Nerry comes out with a tray of drinks. ‘Now then, my apple-blossom, you haven’t started telling Mam your stories without me, have you?’
‘Would I do such a thing? I was just explaining why I’m tireder than I should be.’
‘I think your wife’s had too much sun, Nerry: she’s saying she was in the mine longer than she’s been gone for!’
‘You what now?’
‘Oh you two! Just let me get my thoughts together and I’ll tell you.’
Somewhere out of town a bird is unfolding its song into the hot evening air. ‘What happened was,’ Taffeta says slowly, ‘we’d be inside the mine, doing this and that, and then we’d feel this tingling and suddenly we’d be outside the entrance again. And however long we’d spent inside, it would still be the same time as when we went in. And when we’d go back in, anything we’d moved or changed was back how it was before. It was like all the time we’d spent in the mine just hadn’t happened at all.’
‘So, wait, I think I’ve missed a bit,’ says Nerry. ‘Why were you in a mine?’
‘Oh, sorry, love, I’m so muddled I’ve got it all out of order. There was this gnome, Kerfuffle. He’s new in town and he’s bought this old mine but never actually been there. Wanted us to go and check it out because the folks he sent before us were too scared to go in. So off we went, and we were poking around this mine, and then suddenly we pop up outside it again, like I said, and when we go inside again it’s like we were never there before. And there was another funny thing – we couldn’t take anything out. Sara found a note on a desk and took it, but when we popped back outside the mine she didn’t have it and we found it back on the desk inside again.’
‘What a thing! I’ve never heard the like!’ exclaims Rose, sipping her cool cider.
‘But how did you get anything done if it was all undone again?’ asks Nerry.
‘Well, it’s odd to say, but it seemed like we got to stay in the mine longer and longer each time before we got put back at the start. So at first we kept running out of time, but after a few tries we had explored all the caves and chambers. Except there was one door that had a magical lock, and we knew from that note there were three keys hidden somewhere. On the next few tries, we found them: one was in the mouth of a huge plant that tried to eat us, another was in a room that filled with water if you touched the floor, and the last one was in a kind of machine. A few tries more, and we’d worked out how to get each key, but we kept running out of time to get them before we got pulled back to the beginning. Well,’ Taffeta corrects herself, ‘the others did most of the “working it out”. Sara especially, and that young bird fellow, Crow Rustle, they’ve both got good heads for this sort of thing.’
The stars are shining clearly now and the sky is dark. Time is passing. Taffeta has never been so glad to notice time passing.
‘Well, we had a few scraps and scrapes but once the others had finally got it all planned out, we seemed to have enough time to get everything done. We got the keys and unlocked the big door. But then things got even stranger.’
‘Sounds like we’ll be needing another drink, Mam!’ says Nerry, refilling Rose’s empty cup and then his own.
‘Go on, Malri,’ says the older woman, trying to be more encouraging than her son, ‘please tell us about it.’
‘Thanks, Rose. Well, at first I thought things were back to normal – we were in a little library. But then we went through the next door and there was a white dragon! Or at least, it looked white at first, but later it seemed to change colours. And Gabriel, our human friend, was gone. Instead there was another hin, a fellow named Griffo. I’d never seen him before but at the same time I felt like I had, like it made sense for him to be there. Anyway we hadn’t time to worry about that – the dragon went for us! Things got quite nasty for a while but then there was the same tingling feeling we’d had before, only this time we didn’t end up outside the mine, we were in a burning building. And no sooner had we climbed down into a safe space under the floor than we were out in a field with a unicorn and talking rabbits who asked a riddle; and when Crow answered the riddle, we popped into a dave filled with rats, then back to the field, then back to the cave.’
‘Are you sure you didn’t just bang your head, love?’ asks Nerry.
‘Oh, give over, you,’ Taffeta responds gently. ‘Well, the next strange thing was that we found our way back to the burning building, except it wasn’t burning and it looked like it never had been! And then we were shunted off again, to a rope bridge over a ravine, which we all crossed except Barden. He was last and it snapped under his feet, and the, pop, we were all back on the side we started on and the bridge was whole again. And there was Griffo… I mean, he’d been there all along, since the dragon, but this time it felt like I was meeting him for the first time. It turned out he’d been there for weeks or months, sent by the people who owned the mine before Kerfuffle bought it. He’d got stuck, said every time he tried to cross the bridge he just reappeared on the same side. Well, we tried crossing the bridge again and it snapped under Barden again, and this time we turned up back in the library!’
‘Brandobaris’ bag of tricks!’ says Rose into her cider. ‘Whatever was going on?’
‘Well, I hadn’t a clue, but Crow told me later that he reckoned were were getting pushed back through time, so we kept ending at the beginning of where we’d been before.’
Nerry splutters. ‘Come again, love?’
‘I don’t know how to explain it. It was the oddest thing. But anyway we went through the library door again and, I don’t know why, but the dragon was asleep this time. Behind it we could see another door and three floating balls in front of it, different colours. I was stumped, I tell you, but Crow and Griffo and Sara managed to figure it out. Seems one of the balls’d make you get older if you went near it, another would make you younger, and the one in the middle just stopped you in your tracks. Well, no sooner had Barden heard this than he tried to blast one of them to bits! Didn’t manage it, but he knocked them in all directions and woke up the dragon – but, as luck would have it, one of these globes rolled towards the dragon and shrank it until it was just an egg again! So we made short work of it and found a key to the door in its little hoard, along with a bit of money and a few other useful things.’
Rose’s eyes and mouth are wide open. ‘I must say, dear, if I didn’t know you better I’d say you were making all this up to trifle with us.’
‘Not a word of a lie, Rose, I swear. I wouldn’t have the wit to make this up!’
‘Well then, love, what happened next?’
‘Not a lot more. Through the door was another old part of the mine with a cart on rails over a big bridge. I think by that time we all felt a little scrambled because the boys all jumped into the cart and wanted to go for a ride, and without thinking I gave them a push. I guess the bridge couldn’t take their weight because it broke apart and tipped them all into the water below. But we got them out right enough, and found a way out. And this time we did manage to bring things out with us.’
‘So you’d broken the magic of the place?’ Nerry asks, peering into his cup to see whether by any chance there’s some more cider hidden somewhere inside it.
‘We hoped so, but it seems not. We went around to the front entrance again and it was still playing the same tricks as before. So we came back and told Kerfuffle what was what – or at least as much of it as we could explain.’
‘How’d he take it?’
‘Not too well at first, when he realized it was no use as a mine. But the others suggested some clever uses he could make of a set of caves where time goes in spirals, so by the end he was in quite good spirits again.’
‘I wonder what he’ll make of the place,’ says Rose.
‘Whatever it is, I’m sure I can get us an invitation!’
It is truly night-time now, and getting a little cool under the stars. Nerry is gathering up the cups. ‘So how long do you think you were in there, love?’ he asks his wife.
‘Honestly, Nerry,’ Taffeta replies, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t seem to get tired or hungry or thirsty, or if I did then it went away again whenever we were pulled back to the beginning. But to do everything we did… it must have been hours, maybe days.’
‘Your life, Malri… I never even imagined such things.’ Rose starts to make her way back to the house.
‘Neither did I, Rose. Neither did I.’
A little later, Taffeta goes to sleep thinking of how strange her life has become, and how strange it is that it seems almost normal now. And of how much harder it would be without the weird and magical townsfolk who seem to take it all in their stride.
The next morning she sets off into town to make sure Gabriel made it home safely.
