Take me now
Feel your breath as it heightens
Your chest start to tighten
Let euphoria surround you
Like planets colliding
You stare in my eyes and...
I watch it ignite in you
-- "To tell you the Truth" ~ written by wolves
This is a continuation of Warren Widdershins Ways and Woes, where we followed brave Auri as she visited the Mauthen Farm and Newarre, for reasons we have yet to piece together. But to understand the journey we must understand the traveler. And so we must back track before her journey a bit. A story is never a straight road and so we move in slow circles around it. How young and brave we are, how proud... how foolish, we do not know the weight of this song or we would dare not approach it's pull and its terrible need.
So we must discuss Auri.
Auri is ...How can I explain a person? Elodin says we can't really even understand a rock. He talks about it's shape and size, but there is more to it then that. It's how we see the rock, what it means to us.... what she means to you.
She is Auri then. You should know her, remember her graceful movement and her sunny smile smile. Recall when she saved that sunk, even though it bit her. Or when she fixed that pipe so the those above could have their bath and never worry over how the water flows beneath. Her love for kvothe and his music. Her large eyes wide in wonder as he plays, I imagine her clapping all overflowing with exuberance, the whorl her blonde hair makes as she skips and scampers, creating splashes here and there in the murky puddles below.
Think of that, think of a special moment you have had with her as we move forward. She needs your help. She needs your understanding.
On the first day, Auri woke up full of energy, she had her sweetest soap and the floor was warm. Everything on her mantelpiece was just as it should be:
And above that was the mantelpiece: her yellow leaf, her box of stone, her grey glass jar with sweet dried lavender inside. Nothing was nothing else. - 3
As previously discussed she has a busy day finding things. To start she takes a dive into a pool and gathers some interesting items from it's depths and then she visits the Muathen farm and Newarre. Quite the day! On day two, things start off as well, but turn sour as she witnesses a very bad omen:
Grinning at herself, she brushed the elf knots from her hair until it hung around her like a golden cloud. But just as she was finishing, when she lifted up her arms to push her cloud of hair behind her, Auri staggered just a bit, all sudden dizzy. After it passed, she walked slowly to Cricklet and took a long, deep drink. She felt the cool water run all along her insides with nothing to stop it. She felt hollow inside. Her stomach was an empty fist. Her feet wanted to go to Applecourt, but she knew there were no apples left. He wouldn’t be waiting there, anyway. Not until the seventh day. Which was good, really. She had nothing suitable to share. -112
She gets some food from Tree and travels back to the Grey Twelve. She says it's where she found the Fulcrum.
Just to be sure, Auri carried the gear back to where she’d found it. -44
Though yesterday she called the Pool she found it in was called the yellow twelve. Auri might name things based on her mood, or maybe it's really never the same place twice. Let's just call it the Twelve for now. More importantly, she is given a sign:
Looking up, Auri saw the shape of a nightjar outlined against the dull grey circle of light entering the grate high above. The bird struck something hard against the pipe, then ate it. A snail, she guessed. There was no need to guess the type of pipe though. The ting of it let Auri know it was iron, black and twice the thicken of her thumb. The nightjar tapped the pipe again, then dipped down to the pool to drink. After it drank, the bird winged quickly back to its previous perch. Back to the pipe. Back to stand in the center of the dim grey light. It tapped a third and final time. Auri’s gut went cold. She sat up straight and eyed the bird intently. It stared back at her for a long moment, then flew away, having done what it had come to do. She looked after it numbly, the chill in her gut making a slow knot. She couldn’t ask for things to be more clear than that. Her pulse began to hammer at her then, her palms all sudden sweat. -46
She seems to have sensed that both Tenance is wrong and there is a leaky pipe somewhere. could the be related? Could things be spilling out of the Underthinga? So she races off to Tenance. A between place. She finds boot tracks there and they tell a tale she doesn't like. I promise, long miles from here, will pick up the trace of those prints. But she doesn't have time for boots and neither do we. She we follow her to mend a leak in Rubrick
...Auri heard a sound like angry snakes and rain. If not for that, it might have taken her all day to track it down... she saw water bursting like a fountain from a cracked iron pipe....
following the dark pipe backward. -48After ten minutes and a quick detour through Tenners, Auri found the valve, a small wheel barely big enough for both her hands. Setting down her brush and bottle, she gripped it tight and twisted. Nothing. So she brought the handkerchief out of her pocket, wrapped it round the wheel, and tried again, her teeth bared with the effort. After a long moment, the ungreased age of it gave way, and it grudgingly let itself be spun. She gathered up her tools and headed back. There was no sound of snakes. The spray had stopped, but the entire tunnel was still sodden.
She is short on time, but knows she has to wait for the pipe to dry:
The air was still hot and thick with wet, so she went back to her sitting place where there was nothing to do but fidget and worry. .... The air was clearer now. Not wet and steaming any more. She gathered up her tools and was glad to see the steampipe had finally roasted both itself and everything around it dry. Better still, the slow regard of silent things had wafted off the moisture in the air. Auri brought Foxen close to the black iron pipe, and was relieved to see the trouble was no greater than a hair-thin crack. Though the pipe looked dry, she wiped it with her handkerchief. Wiped it again.
She fixes the pipe with Tenaclum. Which contains green grass, leaping and Sulphonium or maybe Naphtha. Green grass you can find outside in the summer, Naphtha can be found at the Alchemy Complex at the University (Two miles west of Imre), Belenay-Barren. Central Commonwealth. (TWMF:chpt 4).
Then she unstoppered the bottle, dipped her brush, and spread clear liquid all across the tiny break. Wrinkling her nose at the knifelike smell, Auri dipped her brush again, painting all around the pipe. She grinned and eyed the bottle. It was lovely. Tenaculum was tricky stuff, but this was perfect. Not thick like jam, not thin like water. It clung and stuck and spread. It was full of green grass and leaping and... sulphonium? Naphtha? Hardly what she would have used, but you couldn’t argue with results. The craft employed was undeniable. Soon she had coated the entire pipe around the crack in glistening liquid. She licked her lips, looked up, then worked her mouth and spat delicately onto the far edge of the wet.
She gives it a tentative touch, then a thankful kiss, Mandrag might raise an eyebrow, but its solidified by now. I assume she wouldn't use something poisonous for a water pipe, what if a master were to get sick? She knows art, and knows alchemy part in it. Did she expose yourself to unbound principles here? Maybe Sim could tell us. But he is studying for admissions.
The surface of the tenaculum rippled and her grin grew wider. She reached out a finger and was pleased to find it hard and smooth as glass. It showed pure mastery of craft. Auri painted two more coats, laving all way round the pipe and for a handspan off beside the hairline crack. Twice more she spat to set and glaze it. Then she stoppered up the bottle, kissed it, smiled, and sprinted back to turn the water on.
She check Tenance again, but no footsteps. She puts her bottle back on its shelf in Tenance. Her duty finally, she should be able to relax. Catch her breath... but she can't and the sound her chest makes tells a story I do not like:
She slowly closed the heavy door behind her. She checked the latch to make herself most certain sure. Stepping back into the Underthing, the stones should have been sweet beneath her feet. But they were not. They were mere stones. The air seemed strange and strained. Something was wrong. She stopped and listened at the door again. She listened closer, then opened up the door a crack to peer inside. Nothing. She closed the door and checked the latch. She leaned her weight against the door and tried to sigh but could not find the breath for it inside her chest. Something was wrong. She had forgotten something. Auri ran back to Rubric, heart stuttering as she turned wrong. Then wrong again. But then she found the valve again. She went down on her knees to make herself most certain sure she’d turned it open and not closed. She put both hands upon the pipe and felt the tremble of the water running through. Not that then. But still. Had she moved carefully enough? Had she left a smudge up o n the floor? Auri sprinted back to Tenance and put her ear against the door. Nothing. She opened the door and lifted Foxen high so that his light shone down onto the dust. Nothing. By now her skin was all asheen with sweat. She closed the heavy door. She checked the latch and leaned her slender weight against it, pressing with her hands and forehead. She tried to breathe more deeply but her heart was stiff and tight inside her chest. There was something wrong about the air. The door refused to sit right in its frame. She pressed against it with both palms. She checked the latch. Foxen’s light seemed suddenly too thin. Had she moved carefully enough? No. She knew. She listened, then opened up the door and looked again. Nothing. But simply seeing did not help. She knew that seeming wasn’t hardly half of things. Something was wrong. She tried, but she could simply not unclench. She could not catch her breath. The stones beneath her feet were nothing like her stones. She needed to get somewhere safe. Despite the stones, the strangeness in the air, Auri started walking back to Mantle. She took the safest way, but even so her steps were slow. And even so, she sometimes had to stop and close her eyes and merely breathe. And even so, the breathing hardly helped. How could it when the air itself had gone untrue? The angles were all wrong in Pickering but she didn’t realize how lost she had become until she looked around and found herself in Scaperling. She did not know how she had come to be so out of place, but there was no denying where she was. The damp was all around. The smell of rot. The grit under her feet. The way the walls were leering. She turned and turned again but could not find her place. She tried to push ahead. She knew that if she walked and turned and walked eventually she must leave grim, gritty Scaperling behind. She would come out into a friendly place. Or at least a place that did not twist and cramp and loom all round her. So she walked and turned and looked around, hoping beyond hope for a glimpse of the familiar. Hoping that the stones might slowly start to belong underneath her feet. But no. The hammer of her heart told her to run. She needed her safe place. She needed to get back to Mantle. But where was the way of it? Even if she knew the way, the air was growing tight and dizzy all around her. Though she was loath to touch them, Auri stretched her hand to lean against the sharp unkindness of the wall. Slow steps. A turn. She smiled to see things open up ahead of her. Finally. Her chest began to loosen up when finally she saw the end of Scaperling ahead. She took two steps before she realized what way it offered out. She stopped. No. No no. The tangle of unwelcome tunnel opened up ahead. But it opened out into the vast and empty quiet of Black Door. Auri did not even turn around. She merely took step after slow and sliding step back the same way she had come. It was hard. The wall caught at her hand and worried it, scraping skin off of her knuckles. The damp tight knot of Scaperling did not want her back inside. But Black Door did. The wide and welcome path to Black Door stretched before her like a dark black open mouth. A maw. A maul. Step after step she forced her way backward into Scaperling. She did not dare to let the way to Black Door out of sight. She did not dare let it behind her, all unseen. Unseemly. All unseamed. Finally she backed around a corner and sank trembling to the floor. She needed everything to not come all apart around her. She needed to get back to Mantle. She needed her most perfect place. There the stones were safe under her feet. There everything was sweet and proper true. She was dizzy and askant and slant. She shook and could not bring herself to stand, so she folded herself in and sat crosslegged upon the floor. She sat there for a long and silent while. She closed her eyes. She closed her mouth. She covered Foxen with her hand. All small she sat. All still. The grubby dank of Scaperling got in her hair, made it hang heavy. She let her tangleness fall all around her in a curtain. It made a tiny space inside. It was a small space just for her. Auri opened up her eyes and looked into this tiny private place. She saw brave Foxen bravely shining in the sheltgger of her hands. She uncovered him, and even though his light was thin and thready, the sight of him in this small space made Auri smile. She felt around inside herself for her true perfect name and though it took a long and lonesome moment, finally she felt it there. It was shivery and scant. Scared. Skint. But just around the edges it was still scintillant. It was still hers. It shone. Moving slowly, Auri stood and made her slow way out of Scaperling. The air was thick and shuddersome. The walls were full of spite. The stones begrudged her every step. All everything was snarling allapart. But even so she found her way to Pickering, the walls were merely sullen there. Then she made her way to Dunnings. Then Auri finally felt the stones of Mantle underneath her feet. She lightly stepped inside her oh most perfect place. She washed her face and hands and feet. It helped. She sat for a long moment in her perfect chair. She enjoyed her perfect leaf. She breathed the lovely ordinary air. Her skin no longer felt stretched tight. Her heart grew buttery and warm. Foxen was fulsome again, even effulgent.
Auri went to Van and brushed her hair until the damp and tangle were all gone. She drew a breath and sighed it out. Her name was sweet inside her chest. All things were in their proper place again. She grinned. -54
Before us tiny Auri, full of wounder. Her bright eye's always looking. Her grim determination to always do right by all things. Be they musicians, snails or buttons. I wonder what she dreams of, all along in her perfect place. I hope some of them have warm fires, hot chocolate and deep soft carpets.
You're free to weave your own story about her, about the world she lives in. I have a story to tell and it's no adventure of there and back again. This is a turning point, one of many, each darker then that last. Each requiring more from you.
We take a deep breath, our feet do not falter
Auri starts her day whimsical, restless almost euphoric. Then iron strikes and she sees people have been coming and going in her Underthing (how indecent!). She panics, her breath grows tight, thick, sudderersome and strained. She is dizzy and slowed and she needs her perfect place.
There she feels the stones under her feet, she sits in her perfect chair and she enjoys her perfect leaf. Now she can breath again, now her chest is no longer tight, and she is buttery and warm. her name is now sweet.
If someone told me this story about a friend without the poetry I would tell them to see medical advice immediately. I am no doctor, I do not want to make a diagnosis. But this is fantasy and doctors are busy saving real lives. So were all Auri has. If this story didn't touch so much on substance abuse and if her episode didn't look so much like the stages of ophalum, we wouldn't be here considering.
“... The effects of ophalum are euphoria ...”
“Check.” She (Denna) winked at me (Kvothe), grinning.
“Followed by mania, some delirium if your dose was high enough, then exhaustion.” -NOTW:592
As well as chest and breathing issues:
let me know if you feel any heaviness in your chest, or have any trouble breathing. So long as neither of those things happens, you should be fine. -NOTW:591
Auri normally seems to be in a state of euphoria, having intense feelings of well-being and happiness. As well as showing signs of Mania, elevated arousal and energy level.
She has intense feeling of happiness about a gear
The gear was unlike anything she had ever seen before in all her years below. Just looking at it made her happy. And heavy as it was, it was a joy to touch. It was a sweet thing. A silent bell that struck out love. -112
Here is her getting exasperated with bottles
There was a wide wire baling top, a grey twisting lid, and a cork fat as a fist. They were all different shapes and sizes, but none of them were quite right. Exasperated, Auri threw her hands into the air. So she ran back to Mantle, her bare feet slapping on the stone. -111
She practically dances and runs between everywhere, constantly busy until she crashes. And when that crash comes? She heads back to her perfect place: Mantle. Where she has her perfect yellow leaf and a box of stone. We know another word for stone is rock, and another for rock is resin:
Resin rock - NOTW:354
She clearly enjoys her perfect leaf Which could be another drug, maybe Mhenka aka "devil root"? Maybe something else. In addition to her leaf, she also feels the stones under her feet. Potential her way of describing taking the Ophalum.
Oh, her bathing and soap in Mantle helps.
She washed her face and hands and feet. It helped. - 58
Maybe it removes alchemical unbound principles. But if it were that easy, wouldn't Sim have at least mentioned this magic soap at least in passing? What's more likely, soap fixing alchemy issues, or a story we have seen before replayed in a different context? You have to choose.
I purpose Auri is in great pain, she is broken and beautiful. I want to understand her so I can help. He mind is a maze, her movement a mystery, her past a melody that sounds like snow falling. Why would she do this? Why does anyone do what they do... so many whys. And her why lies at the heart of them.
Nothing is conclusive here, nothing about Auri ever will be. Nothing about the way anyone is will ever be.
She is more then she seems. She has power, she has a past, and she has pain. The cause we have not explored. You might have caught glimpses of her prowess with Alchemy. Yet she wares no gloves to protect her hands. What terrible things might drip down the drains and mix all unknowingly between her bare feet or reach her red-eyes. What trauma could lie in her past driving her deep under things. Weather the cause is ophalum, menkha, trauma, unbound principles or other. Auri finds her self all turned around at times and not in a pleasant way. Despite all this, she remains tremulant and tidy for kvothe. For kvothe, she is most tremulant.
Love and pain can drive a women to wonderful and terrible things. Bu we must understand before we can judge, so we must go fall further down the rabbit hole. Not a gentle tumble, this is no fairy tale, pitch into black, the ground rushes to meet ... and we shatter upon the truth.
This is was very hard for me to write. In many ways I'm lucky and so I can't presume to know what I think Auri is feeling. Or what anyone other then myself is going through. I believe I owe it to Auri to help tell her story. I think it's important that we all find the time and space to breath. To go outside, play and enjoy the sunshine. I also believe we can't ignore that it can't always be that simple. That sometimes the days are cold, the winter chill bites and there is no music but that which we make ourselves.
