The Key Between Stranger Realms - Day Ten

On this strange morning, I ride my skateboard down to the corner where I first saw Leon and his striped hound. He does not show. I wait for almost an hour, disappointment draining me.

“I am the key between stranger realms,” I remind myself.

I stake claim on the parched patch of grass by the sidewalk and sit atop my board, concentrating. Focus, the barista told me, is what I need. I close my eyes and try to envision the ethereal pathways between the realms. The memories are there, I just need to find them …

I think of Leon, the version of him in the other realm, not the stranger, but the one who loves me. Where is he?

Suddenly, I hear the clicking, rattling of a bicycle chain approaching. My knee is clipped by the sharpness of a pedal. I wince. Torn from my trance, I look up at her, the woman with the entirely mismatched ensemble, walking beside her bicycle. And through a disoriented haze, I fall into the other realm.

Stone walls, dim torch light, chains hanging from my wrists. I am in a castle prison. Justice watches me from the corner. That is her name, the knight who tried to kill me, the one who has been chasing Leon across the realm because she is convinced he murdered his sister, her queen.

My heart pounds in my ears. The scars. The slashes. The pain. They have yet to mark my body. Which means this must be the moment before Justice loses her patience and takes her vengeance out on me. How long, I wonder, have I been her prisoner?

I do not move. Perhaps she believes me asleep. Through squinted eyes, I search the dungeon-like room. The chains are bolted to the wall. I am unarmed, wearing a torn shift and fishnet vest.

The merfolk. I remember; Justice tracked me down to their caves and threatened them. I didn't want any of my kindest friends to be harmed for my sake, so I went with her, willingly, no fight. What an idiot.

She stands and turns toward the barred window in the corner, her face cloaked in moonlight. How many years, I wonder, had she loved the queen?

My lyre — it is hanging from her back. I think of the calluses, guitar practice, screeching cat. I believed the music could help me escape the mundane realm, and it did. I just need to believe the lyre can return me there, and it will.

It must. For I am not strong enough to withstand the tragic unfoldings. I know I will leave this memory completely changed by the knight's wrath. Yet, if I am swift and can reach the lyre before she reacts, I may be able to return to the other realm, detouring the fury of her sabre, which hangs now on her belt.

I stir and stumble clumsily toward the knight. Chains clinking, soft fingertips reaching in desperation, blanketed half in shadows and moonlight. As the sharp, resonating note echoes, I fall.

Justice has yet to reach her weapon, but still, I lie marred by a dozen slashes. I do not understand, cannot breathe through the affliction, the shock of bleeding out. Utter confusion marks her glistening cheeks, and she lunges toward me in my dying moments.

~

I wake in her arms.

“You fool,” she sighs, kicking away a pile of bloodied bandages. “You really don't know how it works?”

The lyre is in the corner where she once stood, face down on the dusty stone floor.

I shake my head, gasping from the agony of fresh wounds.

“Did not the Oracle tell you?”

“Maybe once, in a dream. I do not recall,” I groan.

She sighs again, jostling my aching flesh as she stands.

“Nigh on a full moon you have been my prisoner. He has not come to claim you. And you still seem to know nothing about your life,” she surmises.

She is wrong. I know of some things, like the warmth of merfolk, the resilience of lost boys, the unexpected affection of a pirate. I know of the mentors, Sorcerer and Oracle alike, who hide truths for some sort of larger purpose. I know the undying love of a runaway king and his tigress.

“I believe you,” Justice whispers, like she is afraid of her own words. “Of all the strangeness in this realm, this I believe. I have to ... You are an interloper.”

“I can find her,” I promise.

Justice laughs half heartedly as if she does not have faith in my passion. But I can see it, the hint of hope buried in her guarded stare.

“How will you find my queen if you cannot even remember how you arrived to this realm?” she asks.

I think of the guitar, calluses, and dreams.

“The first time? It was a song,” I reminisce.

“A song,” she repeats, gazing out at the starry night.

How many songs still reminded her of the lost queen, whose name I still cannot recall?

“I did not plan on it … actually killing you,” she confesses.

“Call me fooled,” I jest, shrug, and regret the painful movement.

“I have, many times,” she laughs, the slightest smile blessing her face.

“The Oracle, Harmony, how do you know her?” I question.

The smile melts away, and Justice grows serious once again.

“She is my sister.”

***

Hello, wanderer!

This is part of a daily series. You can start reading here:

You may also like to read my ongoing fantasy Ersoa's Awakening:

xoxo,

for now,

-your friend, lost in dreams about other realms