I Remember....
by Michael Dillon (sigcarter@followme.com)

I remember that I didn't like her.  That the touch of her skin, to me, was cold.  I remember that my father missed her terribly.  Even before she left us, I remeber that he cried for her in mourning every time he looked into her face and heard another voice.  I remember that she made me mad, I think even as I blamed my father, I blamed her.  She was there when I began, she had spoken sternly to my father of my douties, and I remember that that made me mad.

I am now precisely, three years and forty lifetimes older than I was.  Yet when I think of her, I seem to still feel a child.  My mind goes to mush, I loose the confindance that I have worked so hard to build up and I tremble at the idea of using my magic again.

"I am Tailsman, you know me, you heed me and my call."  In time I have grown cocky in my magic as I was with my father in the beginning.  I no longer bend to formailities I feel that if it is to be done than it shall be done and right away.  I will not ask the help of the magics I command.  I shall ask of blessings from the spirit realm, but that is my fathers magic.  Mine is one of a purely archane nature.  I think in theory, that she had taught me that and so I say to her, "Snowbird....."I hesitate, I wonder if this name is like an insult to her now.  "Narya", I say with more strength, though I must admit that this feeling of strength is rather stemed from the very fact that I remember that ancient name.  

"My daughter has no reason to come to you" This I hear from the northern painted sky that flickers above me.  The lights are mocking me, Nelvana wants to know if I am truly serious in my summons.  I do not want to see this woman again, I have no reason to be angry with her, and yet I can not help but to feel such contempt towards her.  Yet I remember what else she was.

I can turn to no one else but her, I need her.

I remember the love that she had given to my father.  I remember the daughter that she was to him.  I need her now, for she is the only one who loves him as much as I.

"Young child of Twoyougmen," She has come to me.  After all that I have said.  She has come.  "Why do you search for me so.  You have no need of me.  Ease your young mind Tailsman...there is still so much for you to do."

I see her above me and she is so much more than I remember and yet she has not changed at all.  Her hair falls like icicles into the land.  Her blue clock fades into the sky and her crowns is made by the shadows over the moon.  But her face is like it always is.  It is calm, white, and completely serious.  I cannot help but cry.

"He's dying" I cry into the snow, no longer able to look up at her.  I feel an arm on my shoulder suddenly.  Someone is trying to comfort me, I am afraid to look and see who it is, for they may disappear.  It may be her, it may be some friend who followed me from the village.  It may be her...

"Who child?"

She still calls me a child.  I am older than her.  By many years I am older than her, and yet I know it to be true.  I am a child, especially now, especially compared to her.  I tell her it is my father, that he is dying, that I have foreseen his final exhaustion as I was walking the spirit world and I know his death to be true.  I tell all this in tears to the woman my father once chose over me to save.  I suddenly feel bitter again.  

"And if he dies than it will only be his right.  Michael has done more for this land than any I know.  His rest is earned, and it should not burrden you so."

I know now the truth of why I have come here.  I know that the issue of my father's death is not the point.  I know that I have summoned her for there are issues of my memory which only she can comfort.  Which only she can open...my father...I love him so...he may die tomorrow, or maybe in another twenty years.  My vision did not tell me all.  She knows that...she knows that I have come for something more.  But I must realize that I do not know what that is...

"Perhaps you only came because you could,"  Snowbird is before me now, she is solid, like flesh.  She is exactly as she was that day that she forced my hand into my father's pouch, or the day she killed Walter, the day she was chocked as my father made the decision to save her first than me, the day she ultimately (physically) died.
I look up at her and cry again.  There is something about her that my father loved...loves unconditionally.  Somehow I seem to see it, though not recognize it.  

"Our time...the three of us...our time is far from done.  Close your eyes now little bird.  It is far past time that the Tailsman built it's legend."  She kisses my brow, I fall asleep...into the snow...I remember hating her.