There was a thing when one is taken by tragedy. One reinvents their self in order to find a way to move forward. Sometimes it is a bad relationship, sometimes a durance, or kicking addiction. Sometimes the matrix doesn't work because the matrix itself is what needs help in how one thinks or feels. That change is what allows one to move forward again.
For others, like Gisa, the road is long and full of curves but never truly stops. There is a journey that will propel one forward that brings us all to a moment to make us question the direction of our path or the way we walk it. The hedge was full of these moments; beautiful and tragic, curious, and terrible. Today was no exception.
Reinvention, as Alonso says, is very very boring if you only do it once. Once upon a time, Gisa sold the last memories of her mortal father and mother, of the kibbutz where she was born, in order to place a shin on her forehead. She went from being a clay woman torn apart, her eyes pulled out, by The Desert, to a golem.
And over the decades, she has gone back to British Palestine, to the partitioned territories, and finally to Israel, time and time again, to help those torn apart by The Desert. After Yom Kippur, she even helped another clay person make themselves a golem.
She meets messengers every so often in the Hedge, often but not always Sacred Couriers, to get updates from Old City -- only people in a city like Jerusalem name a freehold something like 'Old City' and assume that everyone knows where and what Old City is. And today? Today is a scheduled update day. The first Sunday of the month. She pulls her coat around herself and moves through the Hedge; her feet in her Hedgespun shoes touch the earth. She's swifter than usual -- she doesn't let people see how fast she can actually move, usually, and today? Today the ground falls away under her feet, her strides no less purposeful for all their speed. And she is quick, on her way to the meeting spot in the Western Hedge, near the Freehold. Quick like fire through dry grass.
The hedge fell away in steps, the trod changing subtly in mood as she went. Most was wildernedd, though there were echoes of walls of stone reclaimed by nature and overgrown. Anyone thinking the Hedge lacked sentience or a will didn't spend enough time with it. Or perhaps too much.
Small things cleared way for a golem on the move except one. Maybe they were there to obstruct the path. Maybe it was portent or obstinate, but there was a small creature sitting on a stump that was prominent and unmoving in the path of the trod before it forked off in three directions.
One path seemed to lead up into a hilly area that seemed more rocky. The one forward seemed to fold rolling hills into a forested and shadowed area. Shady, not unwelcoming. The last seemed to stretch down where the trees fell off into a rocky outcropping and the wind promised the smell and tang of water and salt with it.
The figure though was perhaps four and a half feet tall, and while moderately dressed for the weather. with long hairs that seemed to fall back from shortened, plump arms, and a fretful face, full and pleasant. They seemed to be looking at the paths before looking up to see someone approaching. Knitting needles were lowered and all three fingers wiggled in tentative greeting.
The grass bends out of her way so her feet land surely on solid ground, the branches provide her shade and stretch out of her way, the thorns lean a little this way and that. But this one object -- this one creature -- out of all the Hedge, today, doesn't help Gisa. It's an anchor in the midst of a rocking ocean, a fixed rock in the center of a sandstorm, and Gisa stops, her quick progress arrested by the presence of this -- rather odd looking creature. "... shalom," she offers, carefully enough. One never knows what is wanted by those in the Hedge, near or far.
The Hob was looking at Gisa curiously, maybe cautious or afraid, but perhaps not of Gisa. The hand took up needle again that looked like it was made of long porcupine quill and it spoke, quite distinctly, "Um Hullo? Shalom?" It didn't know what Shalom was but it seemed to be accepted as greeting. Strangely enough the distraught creature asked, "Did you need help? I usually don't see many things not trying to eat me around here." The thought caught u to them and asked rather animated, "Wait you aren't here to eat me are you?"
"Shalom means to make whole. But we say 'peace,' and it is a greeting." Gisa raises her shoulders and drops them, fluid and graceful; she's forgotten, for the moment, that she has to act like the slow, single-minded creature that she usually presents to others. "Hello. And no. You are not kosher. I would not eat you. Nor do I eat anything that answers me back when I say hello." No one teach her Fang and Talon, or she will quickly become vegan. "I am meeting a messenger here. From Israel. Well -- a bit that way." One hand rises and gestures up the path. "What are you knitting?" Pause. "Have you seen anyone but me recently?"
The small being lit up an earnest smile and waves a hand bashfully, "Nooo I'm not Kosher. I an Nu'na. I have not seen anyone right now but you. Sometimes many pass, sometimes not." How long has Nu'na been sitting there exactly. Looking down they answered "I am knitting... myself I think? But not yet. Many decisions before I consider the pattern." Some form of Caterpillar hob apparently. They turned their head and looked around perhaps sad at having nowhere to offer to rest as the stump was occupied. "It sounds a lovely place. Why are you going?"
Laughter, then, a low sound like rocks rolling down a hill. "Kosher is not -- " and then Gisa waves a hand absently, dismissing it. "Nu'na. Is it a name, or a type, or both?" Gisa keeps checking up the Hedge path and back, in case the messenger is on their way, but at the same time, she's kind of enchanted by this small, nervous creature. "You are making yourself?" The flames which are her eyes glitter and sparkle at that. "I think that everyone does, sooner or later." Her shoulders flow up and down again, easily. "To meet a messenger. To learn if I am needed to help, and to get news from Old Town."
The creature looked at the knitting quills and back up to Gisa, "Nu-na is... Nu'na I think. I don't know I can say I am a type. We are all our own type. Well, except Fetches I think. They become someone else. That is type. but who else can be us but us? Maybe similar to me, but they make themselves into... more them. I'm supposed to be making myself next. I was larvae. Then not. Then me. Next... I do not know." The knitting seemed to be of the long hairs from the caterpillar body in a circle becoming a slow cocoon. It was paused though. Nu'na looked up, "Only I can be me. Only you can be you but I cannot decide.. what I need to be. What if I choose wrong? So Nu'na stops. It's... been a while. I did not see a messenger though. If they need help what will you do?"
The golem listens to the long little monologue that the Nu'na goes on, slowly nodding here and there. "Change brings hope. If things are the same, there is nothing to ever hope for. Maybe you don't get to know for sure. You just have to hope that the change that comes is something you can love." She raises her shoulders and drops them again -- it's a familiar gesture for a creature that has a limited range of emotional expression. "Yes. Only I can be me. Only you can be you. So there's no blueprint. Maybe you just have to be a little hopeful and see what happens on the other side of your cocoon." She sniffs slightly. "I will possibly go to Israel, to help. Maybe just give a message. Maybe -- maybe ask someone to go with me, depending on the help they need." Gisa clears her throat.
Nu'na looked to Gisa and tilted their head curiously, "Will you let the trip change you or will you change for the trip?" Change for caterpillars was natural but also a bit of a big deal. Nu'na pointed, "If I go to the mountains wings would be nice. If I go to the shore I might want gills. Or a nice shell. Birds beaks are pointy. A shell I think would be, you know, nice. er. Than being eaten. Maybe it is what we need. What do you need?" It was an odd but direct question, and perhaps it expected an answer or not.
Now that's a bit of consideration to be had. The golem takes a step back, and the long grass folds around her feet, and straightens up where she's been, covering her tracks for her as if it's her faithful dog. The Hedge isn't usually nearly so considerate at all; today it helps, at least. Eventually, having turned her head and looking off toward the wall of trees, she turns her face back toward the caterpillar-creature. "I would steal the fire from the heart of the desert," she answers. "Instead of the cheap copies that it gave me for my eyes." There's scorn, there, in the subtle way that this Elemental emotes.
Nu-na tilted their head and asked "Well why would you need to wait? If it is something you know you would do, why not take it? It is as much yours as theirs. I think it is a gift we give to our self. I think, I do not want to be eaten by gulls. I do like their wings though." The knitting started slowly and Nu'na asked Gisa curiously, "Do you think they would get upset if I had my own? Should Nu'an worry about opinions of things that would eat Nu'na?" There was some consternation as they looked to the Golem. It was not unlike the question posed to Gisa. 'Does one sweat the wants of those that would take things from you or do as you were meant to?'
(To be continued)
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