{"id":786,"date":"2012-06-05T14:41:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/?p=786"},"modified":"2012-06-05T14:44:20","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T20:44:20","slug":"172-a-compromise-is-a-dirty-word","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/2012\/06\/172-a-compromise-is-a-dirty-word\/","title":{"rendered":"(172-A) Compromise is a Dirty Word"},"content":{"rendered":"

Author’s Note:
\nI stopped writing Doctor E for a semester of school as updating was incompatible with my schedule, but I did scrawl a little for the beginning of book 2, “Opener,” where book 1 was “Closer.” \u00a0This is alternate beginning part 1 of 3.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Magic, whether you know it or not, is about compromise.<\/p>\n

Yeah, there are wizards who are powerful enough to drop mountains onto cities. \u00a0It’s not very human, though, is it? \u00a0It’s not the way of the world. \u00a0It’s not how mountains or cities are used, and the farther you go, the harder it is to change and be part of the world. You become more and more of what is Beyond it.<\/p>\n

This is why wizards work with coincidence, with slight changes of possibility. \u00a0With the greys, the maybes, the might have beens, the lesser trod of the two paths. With mystery.<\/p>\n

It is a crisp autumn day.<\/p>\n

Nevermind that about five minutes before it had been the darkest of the “before dawn” in late summer. \u00a0It is a crisp autumn morning, and I am walking in a diminutive wood, a bonsai bonanza. \u00a0Huge trees had marked my passage, and here I am a giant, and everything is cuter in miniature.<\/p>\n

Fairyland is more like us than we are like ourselves. That’s the phrase that comes to mind out of one of Thomas’ sayings, and I see why he says it. \u00a0It’s a compromise, not a coincidence. \u00a0For it to interpret us (oh bless thee, Bottom!) we must interpret it in kind. \u00a0Not in one of those convenient little parables of, “I see it like my mind would explain it,” because then it would be more Star Wars and less Hamlet, but in that to stay stable, to stay in synchronization with our world, these fairylands make compromises.<\/p>\n

So I am not in the back of the Beyond. \u00a0I am in a tiny forest that comes up to my hips, and I am trying to balance on a tiny path that is a twisty maze of passages that are all alike from this vantage point. \u00a0I am clumsy, and I am curiously waiting for a cupcake to say, “Eat me,” so I can better interact with this world that is Small.<\/p>\n

Do I synchronize with the place, or does it synchronize with me? \u00a0A dragon’s tooth lies heavy in my pocket. \u00a0I keep fiddling with it, like some kind of worry stone. \u00a0I wonder for a moment what my troll friend does in this place, made of stone and the bones of the earth. \u00a0How does a creature that could be twelve feet tall handle a town that fits in a tea cup?<\/p>\n

It’s not the size that matters, I guess.<\/p>\n

You know, I’ve never met a girl who has actually said that.<\/p>\n

How you use it, well, there is a trick to that. \u00a0As no convenient mushrooms or cupcakes make their way to me, the forest does become larger, and it’s not just a trick of the distance. \u00a0After about an hour of walking (and I do it a good clip so that I don’t keep too cold in the fall breeze) I’m actually into the forest, and trees that would make a troll feel small (little “s”) tower over me. \u00a0I still don’t know where the path is taking me, but I take it for granted, as I have an invitation.<\/p>\n

Somewhere. \u00a0On my kitchen counter, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

The forests of the Small Kingdom are not like the ones in the Rocky Mountains I’m used to… no chipmunks running around, no cycle of life and death the way trees lose leaves and needles. \u00a0No crisp calling of birds. \u00a0Every once in a while a tree settles or sighs, and I freeze up, waiting for it to become a carnivorous beast hungry for my brains. \u00a0It doesn’t happen, and after a while, their ambulatory nature just becomes another sound. \u00a0At least that’s settled – if one falls, the other trees are going to point and laugh.<\/p>\n

These aren’t evergreens, or deciduous, or heck, I’m not a botanist. They’re not normal trees, and sometimes they stare at me as I go past, so I try not to notice. \u00a0Nothing’s getting in my way or shouting out, “Beware… for the path you have taken shall lead to certain destruction.” \u00a0Heck, maybe they all speak Esperanto. \u00a0That’d be funny. \u00a0The trunks are black with pink leaves here, and then black with green and red leaves over there. \u00a0The shapes, they seem to be the same, the ideas are there, but the execution is by painters who think cutting off their own ear is sane and practical.<\/p>\n

I always wanted a children’s book to say, “See Van Gogh. \u00a0See Van Gogh run. \u00a0Go, Van Gogh!” \u00a0That’s a lie. \u00a0I just thought of that this minute while trying to figure out if that flash of silver was a flag or a fish or a bird or a stream.<\/p>\n

Anything’s possible when your flowers smell like Old Spice. \u00a0Well, Old Spice and dead things. \u00a0I don’t know if it’s actually possible to be allergic to anything in the fairylands. I mean, wouldn’t my receptors have to recognize the allergens in some fashion? \u00a0Sneezes here were probably the work of tiny demons.<\/p>\n

That’s a pleasant thought. \u00a0I could have angels in my mitochondria to fight back.<\/p>\n

It’s a flag. \u00a0The trees here are less alive, in that, well, animal nature, I guess. \u00a0Mobility is one of those things I was taught separated animal and plant to some degree. \u00a0Or was it motility? \u00a0Motile telephones sound scary, but maybe that’s the obvious evolution of the babelfish.<\/p>\n

This is what happens when I’m left alone with my thoughts. \u00a0Not that my brain wouldn’t happily betray me in company with odd meanderings, but I was trying not to think of something. \u00a0Something big. \u00a0Something important.<\/p>\n

Something like a Dragon in my apartment, throwing me through time and space, like I didn’t exist anchored in any reality.<\/p>\n

I shivered, and it wasn’t because of the cold.<\/p>\n

I had a dragon’s tooth in my pocket. \u00a0That dragon’s tooth, in particular, if I believed the Questor’s wife.<\/p>\n

What is the Dragon’s tooth fairy like?<\/p>\n

And is it really a fairy, or some kind of goblin?<\/p>\n

The flag billowed bigger than a bus, the colour of the sky, with a silver lining. \u00a0A small man stood in front of the flag pole, made of a particularly straight branch of a tree more like a cactus than a fern. \u00a0Which, looking at it, made sense, even if it fails in description.<\/p>\n

“Sir Recks-a-Lot, I presume?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of three alternate ways to begin the new story. Magic, whether you know it or not, is about compromise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alternate-beginning-opener"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":805,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions\/805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3-2-1-boom.com\/doctor-e\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}