Chapter 100

Chapter 100: 100 It was my first time being teleported like that and I really hoped it would be the last. Even if it had been a completely stress free situation and it was to do something nice and positive, I still would have rather walked or hoped through a portal in a wall. Instead, I spent what felt like an eternity trying to not let my insides become my outsides while a little boy, who looked uncannily like me when I was a kid, watched me with wide eyes. Eventually the need to hurl (and the need to stop myself from hurling) disappeared and I sat down heavily on the ground with my head in my hands. I really wanted a hug from you right then. "Are you okay?" asked the little boy. I looked between my fingers at him and considered my options and decided I didn’t really have any. If the kid could chuck me across space like that then he could likely do just about anything. "I’m fine," I replied. I dropped my hands then held one out. "I’m Misha." The kid seemed surprised by this then instantly beamed at me and shook my hand. "I know! I’m Mikhail!" A chill went down my spine. My name has always just been ’Misha’ but I naturally knew that this name was a diminutive of the name ’Mikhail’. I eyed the kid who kind of had my name and kind of had my face then smiled congenially. "Hi Mikhail, did you bring me here?" I asked. Little Mikhail nodded. "Mummy told me to bring you." "Mummy?" "Yeah. She wants to see you." "...Okay. Where is she?" Mikhail looked around then pointed. "That way." We were in another part of the tunnels that looked more or less the same as where I’d left you. I even got the sense that we weren’t that far off from the entrance to the normal part of the building though I was also pretty sure I was now pretty far away from you. However, the tunnel that Mikhail was pointing to seemed different. I wasn’t sure if it was the smell or the light or what exactly, but I sensed that whatever was down there, was radically different from where I was right now. I got to my feet. "Alright. Let’s go then." The changes came subtly as we walked down the tunnel. First was the smell. In the other tunnels it was cold and dank like the ocean. Then there were the plants. At first I just saw a bit of moss but soon there were vines and leaves that we had to step over until we finally made it out the other side and into a meadow. An actual meadow. It was a forest, a kind of gentle ones with tall trees and soft grass and warm sunlight that dripped through the leaves, and in the centre of it, where the light pooled the most, sat a woman. She was beautiful, not in the usual pretty you see on TV, but a more primal, powerful kind of beautiful, like the feeling of beauty you get when you look at a mountain range. Strong and beautiful. Mikhail ran to her and nestled into her skirts while I slowly walked over. The woman smiled at her son, patted him on the head then looked up at me. "Welcome," she said, her voice full of that same power. I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded in greeting and stopped a few metres away. She cocked her head to one side with a funny little smile and gestured to me. "Come closer so I can see you properly." I’d initially readied myself to fight against whatever kind of spell she was planning on using to compel me forward, but the spell never came. I stood my ground and put my hands in my pockets since folding them seemed too aggressive and leaving them by my sides made me anxious. "Who are you?" The woman smiled like I’d made a joke and went to speak only to be interrupted by the last person I was expecting. "Enough of this rubbish. ," rang out a woman’s voice, a woman who you’d told me earlier was Ling. I turned and saw her stride through the grass and trees like they didn’t exist. In her hand was a crystal, already glowing, and she held it out towards me. "I knew I’d find you here with him. Just wait until-" "No." The woman of the meadow, as I’d decided to call her, flicked a finger and Ling froze, dropping the crystal as vines sprung up from the undergrowth and restrained her. "You dare-!" The woman rose. "I dare," she replied, then she turned to me, smiling again. "Misha. What do you call this woman?" "Uh..." I looked at her then at Ling. What did I say? "...Ling?" I ventured. "And what is she to you?" "She’s..." My eyes dropped to the grass. The feeling I’d had earlier had only gotten stronger but I didn’t know what else to say. "She’s..." "Mummy!" All eyes went to the little boy standing by the woman of the meadow, half hidden behind her dress. "Mikhail..." breathed Ling and for once I saw the expression of a mother on her face. "Mikhail... Oh, Mikhail..." She pulled at the restrains on her, pulling on them just to get a little closer to the child who was not me. "Who are you?" I asked again quietly. The woman of the meadow patted the little boy on the head and he looked up at her then trotted forward to Ling. As soon as he neared, the vines restraining her vanished and she embraced Mikhail with everything she had, sobbing and wailing. "My baby... My little Mikhail..." I looked away. There was a dull pain in my chest that only got worse each time she cried out. A hand rested lightly on my arm and I jumped and found that the woman of the meadow had, without me realising, come up right beside me. To my surprise she was a full head and a half shorter than me and more strongly built than I’d initially thought. "We can talk over here. She," the woman glanced at Ling cradling Mikhail in her arms, "won’t bother us." "Mikhail... he’s not real, is he?" I said as I warily followed the woman into the grove. "Not in the usual sense," she replied. "He is... a fragment of a memory, a splinter of a life that once was but no longer is." "An illusion?" "If that is how you like to describe it." "You’re giving her an illusion. Why? She’s going to be pretty upset once she realises it." The woman stopped under a weeping willow and rested a hand on its gnarled bark. There was a small stream just a few feet away and a few feet down on the other side of it, just happily gurling along. "She will not be upset," she said. "She will forever believe that she has been reunited with her son. Nothing can change that." "But that..." I looked back at Ling and was suddenly struck with how the curve of her jacket sleeves and the folds of her shirt and long skirt made her look less like a human woman and more like a motley owl. "Is Ling... not human?" "I do not know if you are familiar with them. They go by different names, but their nature is essentially the same: women who long for the children they lost in childbirth and who-" "A gu-huo-niao!" "Ah, you are familiar." "Kind of. I know someone... I have a friend who is one," I said. "Oh? That is kind of you." "What do you mean?" "Well..." she cocked a head to one side and rested her chin on her hand. "Gu-huo-niao tend to feature on the more unpredictable side of the pendulum. Few can form strong emotional attachments, not while their minds are so full of hate and fear. Her desire for her child has become her shackles and that Arthur holds him above her head so skillfully that..." She sighed. "I hold no love for Ling but I do pity her. Oh yes, I pity her, her and all the others who have been drawn into this ever downward spiral. The same river cannot be stepped in twice. It would be best if they understood that." "I don’t think Amethyst is like that..." I said thoughtfully. "I am glad that you are kind," the woman said with a nod. "Is Amethyst... a special friend of yours perhaps?" she added. Despite clearly being in the presence of a very powerful being, I groaned and crouched on the ground. "Not you too..." The woman crouched down next to me. "What am I like?" she asked. "I..." I looked up and into the woman’s face. It was open and curious and must be a lot like how I look when I’m asking you questions. "I have a special someone, but it’s not her," I said. I deliberated then decided to go on anyway. "It’s a boy, a boy named Bran." "You like him very much?" "I like him very, very much." The woman smiled the sweetest of smiles and pinched my cheek. "Good." Then she rose and went to stand facing the river and held out her arms. "You asked me earlier who I am," she said. "They call me the Nameless Beast."