Raine Remembered #1

[Kaleb (Raine) he/him]

Sleepy man…
(Singing)
Been a busy day. With some heavy seas
But you’ve done your best, sleepy man
Let your troubles lay. Let your breathing ease.
While I rub your chest, sleepy man
You’re all done with the run of the race…for today
You’ve got plenty of running to face come tomorrow
I’m right here, always near
Always (forgotten word) my dear, sleepy man…

I wrote this song recently. I’m having a memory break through the fog. A memory of the man who took me. The one who gave me this scythe.

I see myself: I walk into an earthen worked room, the walls are clay, fired earth, and roots of great trees. We’re underground. There is a bed, a small table and two chairs, a water basin, and some scattered armor and weapons. I wash my hands in the basin, the water turns brown red. I was with hurting people. Healing them. I’m exhausted. He enters the room. Holding the scythe, both are covered in blood, sweat, mud. He is an imposing presence. My heart skips. (Is this fear or intrigue I’m remembering?) He holds out the scythe handle to me. I grasp it and all the blood seeps into the blade… it is clean again. He sets it against the wall, my eyes linger on it. He moves past me and takes the pitcher of water and pours it over his head. It clears a little but not much. I tell him to sit in one of the chairs. I leave the room with the pitcher, there is an underground spring in the long hallway outside of the room, in the middle of it. I fill the pitcher. Returning I start to sing. The water responds, it swirls, moves. I set the pitcher down on the ground and sing more. The water rises from the pitcher and begins cascading in jets around him. Cleaning him in the water’s dance. He closes his dark penetrating eyes. My singing grows in intensity. The water responding in kind. I’m lost in the throes of the song and the magic. Then I feel his hands grab onto my arms as he says, “Raine, come back, but keep singing.” I open my eyes and continue my song. The water in the room is in a swirling vortex and he leads my out in the hallway, the spring has lifted from its natural flow and is creating magnificent shapes all up and down it. Others are standing in doorways watching. He whispers in my ear, “now start slowing down and grow softer.” I decrescendo. Soften the tempo. The water starts lowering itself, the shapes lessening. It drifts back to its trajectory as I finish my song. “What is it that strengthens my magic in this place?” I ask. “The Veil is thin here and…” he stumbles to the doorway and catches himself. I help hold him up and lead him to the bed. He sits on it, “I cannot sleep, there is no point in lying down. There is too much to do.” I take the other chair and place it in front of him, sit, and take his hand, “You are no help to anyone in this state. The only thing you can do for your people at this moment… is sleep.”
“Will you help me?” he asks.
I kneel and remove his shoes. Unbuckle his hardened leather armor. Peel off his shirt and lay him down into the bed. I hum a little and then start to leave when his hand grabs my arm. “Stay… please.”
I sit back on the bed. He lays his head on my lap and wraps an arm around my back. I sing this song for the first time. Sleepy man.

Burzog sets a plate in front of me at a tavern table. “That was a new song you were singing. I like it. Made me want to rest.”
He takes a closer look at me. “You went somewhere again. Didn’t you?”
“Yes, Uncle. I was in a regained memory from the lost time. I remembered that the scythe didn’t feed on blood in the hands of the man who gave it to me, only after I bonded with it, did that start.”
“Did you regain anything else?” Asked Burzog.
“… I… I think I may have cared for him… and he for me… and this makes me want to know the truth ever more painfully.”
Burzog places a hand on my shoulder with a squeeze he says, “We will find your forgotten time.”

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