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"Don't make me, please, Suichi, please don't make me tell you!" She begging him, she stopped when she faced one of the corners of the room. The only wall that was wood, the rest were the traditional paper screens. She was shaking so badly, even steadying herself on the wall, she continued to shake.
"Why not?! We've traveled together for three years now! You are no longer my servant, my slave, you are my friend. I know you've been keeping the truth of your orgins a secret all along, now I'm asking you, tell me the truth!" Suichi cried at her back, Liz began to bang her head against the wall, her voice keening out in sharp sobs.
"No! I can't!"
"Then tell me why not!"
"Because it won't be a dream anymore! If I tell someone the truth, I'll never wake up, never, never, never. I'll never see home again!" She screamed at last, hitting the wall with her fists as if it was the obstacle that kept her from making her way home. "I'll wake up, I'll wake up, I have to believe that! I have too! Tomorrow, the sun will rise and I'll wake up in my bed, at home. My mom will yell at me to get up, that I've slept in long enough. My dad will be cooking in the kitchen. My sister will be playing with the dogs. I'll wake up and they'll be there! So will he, Aiden will ring the door bell, and I'll throw my arms around his neck! I'll see him again! I'll see them all! I'll talk to them, hear them, love them! I just have to wake up!"
"A dream? That's what you think this is?" Suichi asked, confused. Of all the reasons that he thought Liz would tell him, shattering a denial of reality was not one of them.
Liz just cried out as if wounded, and sank down to her knees, still clinging to the wall. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at him. He took a step back at the anguish that was there. Suichi never suspected, never thought that his companion of three years was so fragile.
"Liz?," He asked softly, crouching down next to her. He touched her hair with his hand. "Why do you think this is all a dream?"
Fresh tears welled up in her eyes, and overflowed. They ran in tracks down her already wet cheeks as she began to shake again. It was if the words were welling up too, threatening to overflow; and she was holding them back by force of will alone.
"Because...because, oh gods. Suichi, please, if I tell you this, you have to believe me. Please, please, I just..." She reached up, turning, and fisted her hands in Suichi's tattered gi. He knelt, taking her by the arms, to steady her. "I know who I am. I do. I'm not crazy. I know I'm right because of the things I know." The words began to come faster, Suichi, who had only a foreginers grasp on English, had trouble following. "I knew that France and England were at war. I knew that the French army would be routed at the Battle of Hastings. 1066. I remember. The last successful invasion of England. 1066. I knew to push for the opium market. I know that the Emperor will have son in four months. I know he'll name him Kenji. I know. I am Elizabeth Akiko Bailey."
Suichi shushed her, "I know who you are, Liz. I've known since that first day you grabbed my horse and begged me to translate for your owner. It's okay, I'll believe you, no matter what you tell me." She looked up into his face, her eyes red rimmed from crying.
"Would you believe me," her voice was quiet, and steady, unlike what it had been, "if I told you I was born in a place called Charleston, South Carolina?"
Suichi shrugged, "I've never heard of it, but then again, there isn't much known about the land to the east. Of course I'd believe you." Her fists clenched in his gi tighter.
"Would you believe me if I told you my country is called the United States of America?"
"Yes, Liz, I'd believe you. In fact, I'd ask you if they'd be interested in trading with the Far East," Suichi said lightly. Liz rose up, her face pushing closer to Suichi's. He didn't back away, but became very still, feeling the tension in the room rise.
"Would you believe me, if I told you I was born on November 21st, Year Our Lord, one thousand, nine hundred, and eighty eight?"
Suichi knew the western reckonings of time. He knew that this year, by their calendar, was the Year Our Lord, one thousand and sixty eight.
"...what?" He asked weakly.
Liz continued frantic now, "Would you believe me if I told you that I vanished from my time, on September 20th two thousand and seven? Would you believe me If I said I was from the future? That I saw the milleimum change? That the place I was born in is a city like the kind you've never seen, and never will? That where I come from, buildings are built taller than the highest trees, that their roofs touch where the birds fly? Would you believe me if I told you, I've flown with the birds? That we live in homes of glass and metal? That we live till we're 80 winters old? That we've walked on the moon, and been to other planets in the sky? Would you believe me if I said I know what is coming? What will happen here, next year, in ten years, in a hundred? That I could tell you all the secrets of what's to come? Would you believe me, if I told you, I know how you will die?"
Suichi stared into her wild and frantic eyes. Unable to speak, he just pulled her too him, and wrapped his arms about her trembling form. She cried into his chest, her arms sliding around his side to wrap around him as well.
- Location:Naos
- Mood:
amused - Music:"Lightening Crashes" by Live
Her previous owner insisted to me that she was an idiot. Slow, and barely worth keeping around. That was something I refrained from translating for the girl, thinking that she might have reacted badly. Now that I know her better, I know she would have reacted badly. I also know, that the man was wrong, and it was he that was obviously slow.
I will admit, she has a shocking lack of knowledge in some areas. She cannot cook over a campfire. She cannot ride a horse properly. She does not know how to fill a water skin, or curry a pack animal. She doesn't know how to set up or break down camp. She knows nothing it seems of everyday life that should have been ingrained into her concious. However, on the other hand, she can produce a better wheel and axel structure for wagons. She can see a more efficient way to make a saddle. She came up with a distance measurement device using one of the wagon wheels of a friendly fellow traveler. She knows, and understands higher maths, like star navigation or construction of walls, buildings, cities. She can read and write. She knows money, and measurements. She understands culture, and just...people. She grasps concepts about health and the body that I know some doctors have not even begun to contemplate. She understands things about nature, and the world that I've never even given thought too.
It is as if she is from a place so foregin, that I cannot even concieve if exisiting in a world like this one.
It is a hundred little things as well, things that just make her...strange. The songs she sings under her breath, sound like nothing I have ever heard in all my years of traveling. Her ideas, her philosophies, her beliefs seem so...distant, so unreal, so unheard of. She uses utensils to eat. She uses soap to bathe. She keeps her teeth clean. She washes her hands constantly. She boils the water before she will drink it. She washes her clothes every chance she gets. She talks to herself when she thinks no one hears her.
Who is this slave I've taken in?
I must say, I enjoy talking to her. She is eloquent in her own strange way. She loves to talk, about things that seem so mudane. She asks so many questions. Where is the farthest I've traveled? Who was the most foregin person I've ever spoken too? What did I know about the Silk Road, and its trading posts. What did I know about a place called Mesopotamia. Had I ever heard of a man named Jesus? Had I seen Rome? Athens? Alexandria? Nan Chang? Babylon? Do I have names for the stars? How long had my people had horses? Chariots? Swords? Questions questions, questions. And then, sometimes, she just is quiet. She stares out to the west, and doesn't speak in Japanese or her own tounge. Just stares.
She doesn't just ask questions, she explains so much of what she knows to me. Last night for example, she sat down next to me during dinner and explained some of the higher maths I mentioned earlier to me. She told me how to find my place on land by the stars. How to know if a building was sturdy just by looking at it. She taught me the roman numerals in the dirt at our feet, showing me the symbols for addings, subtracting and the like. She even began to explain the ways of what she called: karekulusu. Which is some sort of very high math used to explain and predict the world, she said. It was very interesting. I look forward to the next lesson.
I spoke to some of the learned men that are traveling with us. Some of what I had learned from her, they had never heard of. Some of it, most of the first lessons, they had, however. Which makes me think she is so very far ahead of all of us. Which makes me wonder, how did she get there?
- Location:Mira
- Mood: calm
- Music:None
