I think everything hit at once, because I know I staggered back after locking the door and I woke up with my clothes on and a case of those funny red pressure lines from the sheets being crumpled underneath me.\u00a0 I took the opportunity to take a long, hot shower, and spent some time organizing stuff in the bathroom.\u00a0 Really, while I might keep my little paperweight with the classic clever “clean desk equals dull mind” quotes, there\u00a0 is something nice about having everything where you can find it again.\u00a0 It’s like a little bit of chaos off your back, and sometimes I don’t think we really count the weight of chaos correctly, maybe figuring that mayhem and mischief are unrelated burdens.<\/p>\n
When I finally looked up from what I had done, I had moved from the bedroom, done everything I could do in the kitchen, and I had even made my bed.\u00a0 If it were a regular day, I could sit back and read with a clear conscience, maybe\u00a0 a certain righteousness.\u00a0 I had even watered my plants and checked my calendar for any upcoming events for which I was scheduled.\u00a0 (Did I really agree to go on a mine tour?)<\/p>\n
Sometimes, though, cleaning is a form of procrastination.\u00a0 I know I had kept the place nearly spotless when Maggie and I had been dating, and at least part of that was in “aggravation prevention” techniques.\u00a0 When I started noodling about cleaning my keyboard, I knew I had to regain my focus and decide my next step.<\/p>\n
I took out my little notebook and started making lists.\u00a0 What were my issues, magical, romantic…al, and mundane?\u00a0 I made some columns.\u00a0 While I could do this easily on the computer, I think it integrates with my brain a little better when I did this with pencil instead.<\/p>\n
Mundane, first.\u00a0 I checked bank accounts and did some estimating on my next check.\u00a0 If something came up and I disappeared for a few days, I would be fine, if I could line up something for next week.\u00a0 I always try to pay a little\u00a0in advance when I can.\u00a0 Not enough to make anyone hate me because they have to keep track of it, but enough that I didn’t have to panic if there wasn’t anything available for a couple of weeks.\u00a0 I had a very slim rainy-day fund, but it could buy groceries, and I can make ramen and rice taste nice.\u00a0\u00a0 I was a college student once.<\/p>\n
Romantic, then.\u00a0 I made sure to get all of Sylvia’s contact information in to my phone.\u00a0 I didn’t know what to do about Magda.\u00a0 Did she set Matana up to protect me, or was that someone or something else?\u00a0 I didn’t like owing favours I didn’t ask for, so I was definitely going to have to look into that.\u00a0\u00a0 I also wanted to understand Nellie and Ivan before I had to put one of them down.<\/p>\n
It all connected with the “Magical” category.\u00a0 I made another note to have a mundane romance someday.\u00a0 It would be a refreshing change.\u00a0 This was an easier list.\u00a0 Get to Questor.\u00a0 Find Doloise.\u00a0 Get Doloise to guide me somewhere so that’s handled.\u00a0 Close Ivan’s connection with the Dragon.<\/p>\n
Wait, that was it.\u00a0 I had a direct route to the Dragon.\u00a0 Ivan’s heart.<\/p>\n
That’s why my subconscious had said, “Romantic.”\u00a0 Not because I was, but because of the heart.<\/p>\n
I loaded up the computer.\u00a0 Peredur and Angharad.\u00a0 If I hadn’t been a gamer, I’d have had no idea how to spell those names, but I had played in an awesome Pendragon campaign that went way past the normal source material.\u00a0 Wikipedia gave me a whole bunch of Welsh poetry in return.<\/p>\n
Poetry.\u00a0 Daffodils from the Welsh mean what for the Russians?\u00a0\u00a0 “The young grey-eyed king…” No, wait, Akhmatova’s “Requiem.”\u00a0 The lines, “And I can not tell \/ Now, who is a beast, who is a man,” never seem to make it into the translations I had read, but I always wanted to take them literally.\u00a0 Of course, narcissus would have to make an appearance, eh?<\/p>\n
Doloise smelled “like a meadow,” I recalled.\u00a0 I tried to think if I could pull any kind of scent in particular out of it.\u00a0 No, it was kind of earthy and like faint vegetation, but not so much that you think, “swamp.”\u00a0 Really, while I could remember a few nice smells (like chocolate chip cookies while they were baking) I couldn’t really name any flowers I could smell right off the bat besides the heavy produced “rose” scent.\u00a0 “Off the bat,” heh.\u00a0 Does that mean I wondered what kind of perfume Matana used?<\/p>\n
So it’s not the symbols.\u00a0 The Ljubljana dragon is on the coat of arms, too, but it’s a protector, whereas the red Welsh dragon always seemed to be a pain in the rear.\u00a0 Peredur as related to Percival, seeker of the grail (or the severed head) in Arthurian legends.\u00a0 There’s a lot of Angharads, although the Golden-Handed was the love of Peredur.\u00a0 Immortals use a lot of aliases, sometimes even as a kind of shorthand for their roles.<\/p>\n
(You know, Percival had been lured to succor a vampiress, right?\u00a0 Maybe Matana’s nudity had gotten to me.\u00a0 It was entirely casual and not particularly full of sex appeal, but I can’t help but remember.\u00a0 I hadn’t seen a naked girl in a while, except on the internet.)<\/p>\n
Too bad Dragons weren’t like cats.\u00a0 I could find a giant can opener and see if it came to the noise.\u00a0 Actually, that wasn’t a bad idea.\u00a0 Dragon bait.\u00a0 Well, it already had its maiden, so now I had to armour up.\u00a0 Unless I was more Bilbo than St. George.\u00a0 Or St. Martha, for that matter.\u00a0 Maybe the can opener was for the armour, that’d make a twisted kind of sense.<\/p>\n
And the terrible Dragon’s cave, in Ivan’s underworld, land of his dead.\u00a0 It would have to be a place of power against Doloise’s talents.\u00a0 A place of iron and the unliving.\u00a0 I could hear it like a mournful song.\u00a0 I would close shut the gates, and mute the cries towards the outside world.\u00a0 Ivan would know their tongue, but he could no longer hear their speaking.<\/p>\n
I put on a fresh pair of jeans, choosing my clothes as if they were a kind of defense in themselves.\u00a0 A jacket, light, but with that thermal weave and with good pockets.\u00a0 I picked things to fill it based on intuition.\u00a0 A candle, some matches, some packets of salt (don’t leave home without them!), a water bottle, some other odds and ends.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t even noticed that the sun had been on its way down, but that was fine.\u00a0 I was ready.\u00a0 I only hoped Ivan was just as ready.<\/p>\n
And that the restaurant was open on Sunday nights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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