Timber Quill
Chapter 81: 81 Aura
Previous Chapter Next Chapter“As you were saying it?”
It took me a second to register that I had said that aloud, as I had said everything before.
I don’t respond to Pearl yet, as I’m struggling to get another word out of Aura.
“Is everything alright?” Pearl asks.
There’s still no response from me, as I still have no response from Aura.
“It’s taking you a lot longer to say anything now,” Pearl points. I hadn’t noticed at the time, but we were walking and approaching a crosswalk. “Is it Aura?”
How much does she know? She knows about Aura, but does she know I haven’t heard from him since the hospital? Does she know he was there in my dreams? How much did I tell her?
“I–I don’t…” I’m stammering. I should just tell her what I know, find out how much she knows later. How long have we been walking? “I don’t know. I think so…?” That’s real classy.
“I want to talk to him,” Pearl states.
I knit my eyebrows at her. If anything, she has to know it doesn’t work like that. He’s not some kind of entity or alter-ego that can just take over at-will.
(What do you want to say?)
“What do you want to say?” What am I saying? God Dammit, Aura. Talk to me!
“Well,” Pearl begins, eyes wandering thoughtfully as we stride through another intersection. “First of all, what the hell?” I’m stunned. She has to know she's actually talking to me right? I won’t have all the answers suddenly. Or… will I? Will Aura? “Sorry, wait. What… the hell are you?”
There’s silence, relatively speaking. Aura doesn’t have an answer, so neither do I. “I don’t know.”
“Ok…” She’s winding up for another question. I want to stop her, tell her it’s too complicated for me to just explain everything so suddenly when I don’t even know what’s going on. I don’t actually come up with the idea to say any of that before she starts talking again. “Where did you go?”
(I never left.)
“I… He says he never left,” I speak, barely correcting myself before speaking for him.
(That’s not right.) I hear. What?
“Ok…” Neither of us was prepared for this, so we don’t know what to say. “So, I don’t know if it is Aura, or if it ever was–”
“Please,” I stop her. “I don’t have any answers right now. Let’s just, go…”
She watches me while we walk, while I watch the ground. I can feel her sympathetic gaze shower over my matted curls like a baptism of curious respect. She sighs, and her eyes fall forward again. “Ok…” I wish I could tell her something, but I have no idea what would make sense at this point. I’ve lost my mind over this; I’m torn between trying to get Aura to say something to me and thinking of something to put Pearl’s mind at ease. We wind up back at my apartment without another word between the three of us. It’s almost noon.
-_-_-_-_-
Pearl reminds me to meet her at the park for lunch, everypony’s going to be there. I have no idea when the plans came together, but she’s putting a lot of effort into this picnic so I know I can’t let her down…
“Unless you want me to come back and get you?” She offers. I thought she had already left. “Just in case one of us is late, or you don’t want to walk by yourself?”
I appreciate the offer. “That’d be nice,” I end up saying. Somewhere in my mind I know I have a lot to think about and that I might lose track of time, despite having to leave in less than half an hour.
She nods slowly, visibly worried.
“Actually,” I stop her as she turns, “I’ll just… I’ll meet you there.” We have a regular area that we enjoy visiting. Not necessarily private, but more secluded than most of the park. A sort of grotto, surrounded by trees with a number of large boulders more or less strewn about. I wonder if Bolden knew where it was, or Noh for that matter. “I’ll leave really soon.”
“Ok,” she agrees, still a little worried. “See you there.”
She finally leaves, closing the door and galloping away. I watch out the window as she trots quickly down the street toward her apartment. I look at my desk, the number of loose papers and writing utensils. I think about my quill, the one my mother and grandmother gifted me over a year ago, stored in a drawer with my memoir. I only took the time to write this chapter.
Now I have to get ready for a picnic.
-_-_-_-_-
A conversation with Aura, at home, immediately after my night out; one that could only be achieved in mindless, drunken[i/], somewhat mechanical writing.
"What are you?"
There are some questions that I cannot answer.
"What does that mean."
Try to understand that what I am involves blurred thoughts from an inebriated mind. I have no form, thoughts, or name. What I am cannot be explained.
Ok... "Where did you come from?"
I am an accumulation of thoughts. Your thoughts. Knowing where I was born would mean knowing the father of all life and time.
"And you only know what I know..."
While I exist to you yes, that is all I can relay. The thing that I am has no true form, though you did not imagine me. I exist in all conscious life, granting subconscious knowledge to those who listen. You were one who listened so desperately, with such intensity, that I was given a name and body for a short time.
"Are you a god?"
To consider me as such is a primitive definition, but if you would like to call me that; if it would make knowing yourself easier—
"Knowing myself? What do you mean?"
I exist only as one shall listen to one's own subconscious.
"You're just there to find old memories..."
Yes, I am here to remind you of forgotten wisdom. I cannot teach what has not already been learned by any one mind. While my aura exists in all intelligent beings, I cannot transfer any information between them.
"...Why don't my friends hear you?"
I can be heard by them in a different way. I materialized for you – as I have for a small number of individuals – for reasons I cannot share.
"Because you can't move knowledge between minds..."
...
"So they can hear you, but to them... They just think it's their own thoughts. They think you're just, their conscience or something."
Yes
"So... why did you leave me for so long? After I fell, and after the dream I had with you... Was it even a dream?"
I cannot speak for the dead.
"The dead—?"
The reason I seemed absent was for the purpose of reminding you of the necessity of independence. You called my name, a name you had given me – your own inner thoughts – for the sake of respite from the living world because you did not believe you deserved to be alive. You sought me out through fear of adjusting back into your world. I could not help you with that, and there was no safe way for me to tell you with my own voice. Your voice.
"You said you cannot speak for the dead."
It is another realm, beyond your's, and even beyond mine. The dream you believe you had was a connection enacted by deeper powers, I assisted only in maintaining you throughout. Understand, however, that it was not a dream. If it were, I could not have been present and you likely would have been visited by the Princess of the Night, and the visions of the dead would be mere phantasms.
"Loaf was really there."
Yes.
"Ok, so what about all that time ago, when I hit my head? I was bleeding in a ditch. It couldn't have been a dream..."
In fact, that was. It was insignificant at the time, and so had not caught the attention of the Her Majesty. This dream has been the first instance where I was given a shape. Unprecedented, it made my relationship with you far more complicated.
"What do you mean?"
By giving me a body, though only in your mind, you believed more strongly that I existed beyond a mental intrusion. You tied my aura to an entity that has never existed before. This relationship you had, with what you wanted to believe was imaginary but subconsciously believed to be deific, tethered me to you and the physical world. I have no idea what this means, and honestly, it scares me.
"You're scared? You... that can't be possible..."
Nevermind that. Neither of our existences is threatened by this. The only thing I fear is knowing less than everything.
"You know everything?"
I can't answer any more, I'm sorry.
Next Chapter: 82 Empathy? Estimated time remaining: 9 MinutesAuthor's Notes:
In which I spoil a little bit from the next chapter to fulfill the word count.