jesshartley

Sometimes, when cleaning up my "virtual" office (ie: my computer files) I stumble across something I'd completely forgotten I'd written. This was one of those pieces... It was (according to the file data) written 7/20/07, which means about a week and a half before we moved from Massachusetts to Arizona last year. If I recall correctly, I'd been asked to come talk to folks about Changeling: The Lost at a local game store that had just opened (Off the Wall, run by Kevin Wall, which explains the reference to him in the piece.)

It was interesting to open this file and read through it, barely remembering having ever written it. But I'm pleased to have re-found it, so I'm sharing it with you today...

Kevin invited me here today to tell you a story. Strange, I know, but the gaming we do is all about stories, isn't it? So...

Once Upon A Time a woman was driving home one winter evening when she got a flat tire. She pulled over to the shoulder of the highway and got out to fix it, when a fog rose up around her car, so thick she could no longer see the road, only hear the continued roar of traffic speeding by just out of sight. Pulling her sweater a bit tighter around her, she shouldered on, hoping to fix it before full on darkness fell. She worked at the lug-nuts with the tire jack, trying to ignore the icy fog that numbed her fingertips. Trying to ignore the little clouds of breath her efforts brought up as she yarded on the cold metal. Trying to ignore the way the traffic’s roar had faded and the sound of foot steps coming nearer. The jack leapt in her hands, clattering to the ground with a metallic clang, and she stood too quickly and almost fell over. Strong hands clasped her waist, steadying her, and as the icy cold of his grip sank through her clothing, she heard the words she would never forget. “This is a dangerous place for a woman alone.”

Once Upon A Time, a boy and his brothers wandered away from their home, as boys are want to do. They spent the day fighting in the woods behind their house, using sticks as swords and garbage can lids as shields. In their imaginations, great battles raged around them, and countless foes fell under their mighty blows. And when darkness began to fall and they turned back to their home, it was no where to be found. The woods had grown up thick and dark around them, and there was no sign of the path which they’d followed into the forest.

The youngest began to cry, the middle to comfort him, while the eldest stood guard over his younger kin. At length, a great horn sounded, and there was the sound of hoof-beats coming through the underbrush. The boys cried out, hoping their father had come for them on their neighbor’s swaybacked nag, but what came from the woods, while hooved, was no mare and no man. The eldest stepped between his brothers and the Horned Man, holding his tattered branch before him. “Leave them be,” he ordered, although his voice shook.

The Hunter looked down at the teen and nodded. “Them I’ll leave,” he said. “You come with me.”

Once Upon A Time, there was a little girl who had an older sister with golden hair and blue eyes. The younger girl was the smart one, the funny one, the nice one… but she wanted nothing more than to be the pretty one, for once.

The Elf King promised to make her pretty, if she’d only do what he asked.

Every morning he sanded her skin and it bled until it could bleed no more and took on the sheen of finest alabaster

Every afternoon, he plucked out her hair, one by one, promising when it grew back it would be as black and rich as the midnight sky.

Every evening, he tretched her limbs on a rack until she screamed, and he leaned close and whispered how tall and lithe and graceful she would be when he had finished

Every day for what seemed an eternity, the Elf King tortured the girl until she begged him to stop and then, when he did, until she begged him to continue again.

And every night he drew her close and leaned in, his lips inches from hers… and promised that they would be together… just as soon as she was pretty enough.

Once Upon A Time there was a man… a pious man… a god-fearing man. He went to mass every Sunday and he confessed his sins. He begged for forgiveness for the little things – jealousy of his neighbor’s house, anger at a co-worker, sloth at his job. But his true sins remained unspoken – Until one night as he was watching the evening news, after his wife had retired sobbing to their bedroom with yet another black eye and his mind was whirling with booze and his lust had been sated in his eldest child’s room, a knock came at his front door. And when he opened it, someone… some THING… pulled him from his home and through the darkness and into a tiny mockery of a confession room. Locked in the darkness, he tried beating down the walls of his prison, but they didn’t yield. He tried screaming, but the darkness swallowed his words. He threatened and cursed and begged and bribed all to no avail. After his voice failed him and his hands were beaten raw against the walls, after what seemed like years of nothing but darkness and silence, a quiet voice came to him from just outside the confines of his prison.

“Have you anything to confess?”

The man began again, threatening and cursing and bribing and begging, but there was no response. Silence fell again, and at length the voice repeated. “Have you anything to confess?”

The pattern repeated until at last the man began the rote admissions he normally saved for Sundays. The presence outside the walls listened. He could almost feel its attention, as he spun bland stories of white lies and impure thoughts, but when he finished, the voice just repeated. “Have you anything to confess?”

The darkness went on forever… and each time the voice asked, the man dug deeper, hoping to earn his freedom, until every one of his evil deeds, every blow, every sin, every crime came out.

And when he could remember no more, tell no more, when his existence had become nothing but the darkness tainted with the echoes of his evil he pressed his hand one last time upon his prison wall and felt it fall away. He found himself in his chair once more, feet propped on the ottoman, empty bottle on the table beside him. In front of him, the news was just ending, and he could hear his family’s sobs from their respective rooms. But when he reached for the bottle, his hands were criss-crossed with the scars of an eternity of attempts to escape.

Once Upon A Time, I have a confession to make. I lie… Kevin didn’t really invite me here to tell you a story. He invited me here to introduce you to Changeling: The Lost – a game where you can create your own stories, each as dark and sorrid as the ones I’ve spun for you this evening… But I promise you, each and every one will have its own bright and beautiful ending full of hearts and roses. Each one will end with joy and mirth and Happily ever after.

I promise…

But then again…

I’ve already admitted that I lie.