#the dagger

ONCE UPON A TIME Rumple being hot AF 🔥 survives in 2x16 "The Miller's Daughter"

Apparently they filmed another scene with Eärien and Valandil. WE WANTS IT PRECIOUS. What do they discuss? How is Eärien battling her pull to protect her loved ones and the unfortunate voices in her ear? How is Valandil standing up to protect the Faithful and their beliefs, even as he had doubts (Isildur that's the same nonsense about the West that your brother used to say, and all that)? Is that part of what made him stand up so fervently at the Shrine? (😭😭😭)

Runner-up: Estrid giving Isildur the dagger, seemingly another deleted scene. Look at their faces...a final nail in the coffin for a "them"? But umm...we know it wasn't...💋💋💋...SO I am very curious what they could have discussed! WE WANTS IT, GIVES IT TO US MY LOVE.

In conclusion: Amazon, Extended DVDs please, the people have spoken 🙂‍↕️🫶🏻

Tuesday, April 28: The Dagger, "Dark Cloud"

I have been in this place since time began. I have been in this place at least one hundred seconds. I know, I counted them. I cannot know if I counted them too fast, or too slow, but I am sure it was one hundred. Seconds. I think it was seconds.

This place is a confusion. There are trees, and there is grass. There are stones. There is no sky, or at least, there are no stars. I look up. Or, I perceive up, and it is black. There are easels and paintings here. They hang from the trees. There are faces on them. Human ones. Or places. Buildings with spires. A small house. A cliffside path and a river. I do not know what they are.

Time flows. I know that it must, but I cannot feel it. I cannot remember when I arrived. I cannot remember when the paintings arrived. I am aware of a sequence of events. I counted to one hundred. That preceded this thought. There is linearity, but there is no flow.

Events happen. 

Sometimes there is a mirror. Sometimes I look in the mirror. I see a pale face. This face has freckles. This face has hazel eyes. This face has red hair. This face has freckles. It must be my face, even though when I look down, I see nothing but grass, and rocks. I am not here, but I am here, the mirror tells me who I am.

Sometimes the trees creak and groan and part, and the grass moves and a path opens. I am in a clearing, but there is another clearing. When the trees move, I see the other one, and in it sits a swirling mass of black and white light in chaotic incohesion. When the mass arrives I enter that clearing. I place my hand, I perceive the idea of playing my hand, on its surface. In those moments a voice speaks to me. It is a woman’s voice.

“Fuck of a day.” It might say. “Damn it Alyssa.” It might say. “You did good work.” It might say. And I will reply to it. I will speak in a woman’s voice. “Are you sleeping?” I will ask. “Did you drink too much again?” I will ask. “How are you holding up?” I will ask.

“I’m fine.” The woman’s voice will always say. And sometimes it might say “No, I’m not.” Sometimes the woman’s voice will talk more. Usually less.

Rarer still, nights come where the trees part only the slightest bit. I think it is night. It has the texture of night. The sky is still black. On these nights I squeeze between the trees, it feels like I have physical form. I can feel the pressure of wood against my skin. I perceive the idea of wood against my skin. And in the other clearing the swirl of black and white is thin and distant but present.

And then I hear the woman’s voice. “I love you.” It will say. “I’m so sorry.” It will say. And I will reply to it. “I love you too.” I will say. “It is alright.” I will say. And I think it brings the voice comfort. I think it brings me comfort too. And then it rains in my woods from the black starless sky. 

So events happen. Another event has happened too.

I am sure it has been recent. When the woods open, when the swirling mass of black and white arrives and I place my hand upon it. Perceive placing a hand upon it. The sky opens up. The woman’s voice speaks to me still. I speak to her in return. But there is more. In the open sky I see a map. Twisting cables of red. Blood vessels and capillaries. Nerve endings and twisting muscles. It is the inner workings of the voice. Of the person who speaks to me. I reach into the sky and pluck at nerves and blood. They move and react. “What did you just do?” The voice might ask at a time like this. “I don’t know,” I might tell it.”Something’s different,” I might say.

The woman's voice in the black and white mass of energy, I have come to realize, lives in a house of meat and blood. The woman's voice drives this like a carriage. Trapped in the house of meat and blood, she sends it signals and it carries her, and it carries me. When she touches the woods, the woods thrum. They pulse. They pulse in time with the movement of the blood in her body. 

Thump. Thump. A dagger vibrates rhythmic and strong.

I could drive a carriage. If I had a carriage to drive.

I have found some clarity. I am a person. I was a person. I could be a person.

When the clearing opens again, I will speak to the voice. And I will make a request.

“Kat,” I will say. Because I believe the name of the voice is Kat. “It has been nine years. Or nine seconds. Or nine millennia. I cannot live in these woods. Take me to the house. Take me to the body. Take me to the vessel. It must have been preserved. Cut open its chest, throne, vault. And place me within it. I will touch its blood and meat and nerves and bones, and I will drive it like a carriage. And you will not have to be sorry anymore.”

I think the voice of the woman will like that. I hope I will like that. I am ready to find out if I am the woman with a pale face. And hazel eyes. And red hair. I will drive the woman with a pale face, and hazel eyes, and red hair. I will be her heart where her heart no longer beats. I will beat for her. And I will say my name is Alyssa.