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Jan. 18th, 2008 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
uquars_gadgetThe following was originally in black pen, and shaky, though it was primarily easy to decipher. The marks were scored deep, as if the writer was trying very hard to write her letters straight.
My name is Helen in this, the language of the wider times, but in my own tongue I am known as Haras-uquara. I do not use that name anymore and I have not for many centuries. When I am pressed for a last name I will use the local variant of Hamilton if I can, or the first object in sight if I cannot. I never pretended to be imaginative, after all, though once I did think myself clever (and compared to many people I was correct in that assessment).
This is not information you, whoever you are, find at all useful, I know; the ramblings of some old woman about names that would sound foreign to your ears. Languages, after all, change. Well, names are more important than you might think. There is a truth in them that people acknowledge without analyzing too deeply, which means they are an incredibly useful way to lie. If my Jamie taught me anything, that was it-- the beginnings of the art of subtly lying and blending in. I have never mastered it, unlike all else I have studied, but it’s not something you can learn through study. There’s not shame in admitting it, I am very old and wise and know much more than you do. I sometimes think my Jamie was born with it written into his genetic code, as sure as the markers for his blond hair and scraggly frame.
This old woman sometimes wonders what he would look like now, if his blond hair would go white or get that ugly dirty dishwater look most blond hair does when it loses its color. Mine is almost completely gray by now, and while it’s frivolous that still annoys me.
See how I ramble? Trying to put down concise words for posterity and this is all I can find in my head. What should I tell you, young one? Do you want to plumb my knowledge? It is far more vast than this silly pad of recycled paper could contain (I am glad to see you are recycling the paper. The nearest forest is still thousands of miles away, and shrinking from what I hear). I was once a priestess of the god of knowledge, you know, if a recalcitrant one and as they once said on an Earth “old habits die hard”. I have made a collection of facts, like some people collect geese, the truths of a many thousand worlds, or what I remember of them, but I doubt you would wish to listen. Most people do not care about truths of any world but their own, and even in then it is hard to care about that which does not apply within the deep cavern-like walls of their own fortress. Fortress city, now, I suppose. City-state, even.
There are three young children now travelling those worlds in my place. I found them when I first started feeling my joints ache and protest against the strain of moving, not long before this disease started I suppose (though I didn’t know it then), and they agreed to come with me. Said they had nothing left in their world. There is more to their story than that, but unlike my Jamie they are not gone and unlike me they are not soon to be, so I shan’t spill their secrets so easily as that. They might come back here, after all, and if they do you’d better have a hot meal ready for them.
Cancer is spread by your own body, turned traitor and hijacked against you. That is how I have managed to live this long. It, too, must follow the natural laws that govern the exiled. If I had caught a plague instead of developed polyps, I would have been dead long ago. There are many planets now that can cure cancer—including this one—and I know the treatments myself. But they are long and arduous, especially for a disease left to fester unnoticed as mine was, and by the time I realized it was there the treatment would have taken years.
I did not have years. Someone must always travel the ways of the worlds and keep them safe. And I am an old woman, older than a woman of mortal descent should ever be: I must have once feared death, but it is so long ago that I forget that day like I have forgotten so many things. I do not fear it now.
It seems strange how fast things have gone since I came to this place, the view of the desert stretching to the horizon through the window. I think it has only been two weeks.
I had to watch them leave, those three, the closest I have ever had to children (I shall likely never forgive my Jamie for that, even if I understood the logic of it as well as he did. I do not have much time left to do it in.) walked out that door with promises to be back soon. It seemed too much like the old times, back when time passed for me here as it does now. Little Talat, though I suppose he is not so little anymore (can he really be close to twenty now? The small boy with the bright smile and the freckled face? Ah, well, he is six feet now and girls act like idiots around him at the very least) even trying to make me laugh in this, Ukuam’s Chosen Medical Center. I am listed as Helen Hamilton here, did you know? You must have, this is probably with my file. It is a strange name, I know, even in this world that has some traffic between worlds. I suppose, actually, that you are a Hand if you are reading this. Maybe you would have been interested in my knowledge. If you are a secretary I shall be most displeased, you know, and millennia ago this planet knew the ramifications of my displeasure. But ah well; now I am old, and by the time you read this I shall be harmless and dead.
Forgive me, but the nurse tells me they are going to be bringing my medication. The care here is good, if you were curious. It is enough to make me proud, as if I had a stake in the managing this hospital that bears my name. But I have always been arrogant, you know. Who knows if I will have strength to write again? The somber young men and women say I shall be gone in a few days, when they think I cannot hear them (why do they always think you cannot hear them? Even a child knows how to fake being asleep). The children have not returned, but I have not expected them to. Such is the way of these things.
If you meet Uquar, tell him his Hand has finally gone to her rest and forgives him for the way he has treated her. It is a hard thing to keep a grudge for six thousand years, well-earned as it may be, though I have tried very hard. I would thank you to take care of my children, they have heard that they have safe harbor in the House of Uquar (the extended Holy City of Ukuam, now, ha? Ukuam is an incredibly horrific name. It makes the god of knowledge sound like some sort of fruit, and not an apple. He likely deserves that, or at least I do not feel guilty laughing at his expense. I know I deserve that much) and I will lay a curse on you if you make the words that I speak that should be truth into lies, you young people of this place. Do not say that curses do not exist, how can you know? Much of the old knowledge of magic has died out, hasn’t it, and I am very good at angry. You will just have to sit and wonder, little ignorant one, and make sure they have a place to sleep and good food to eat.
May the days of you and your city be calm, and look after this world like you always have,
Helen Haras-uquara Hamilton
Chosen of Uquar
First Queen of the United World
The preceding document was found in the possession of an elderly woman in the Ukuam’s Chosen Medical Center after her death. It was originally written on a hospital note pad, with a neat cover page addressing it to the head Hand of the House of Ukuam and an attached note from a nurse saying the woman requested no one but a full fisted Hand read it (archaic terminology for the Hand ranking system) if he thought his ‘idiot self above such things’. There are now many copies of it within the archives.
My name is Helen in this, the language of the wider times, but in my own tongue I am known as Haras-uquara. I do not use that name anymore and I have not for many centuries. When I am pressed for a last name I will use the local variant of Hamilton if I can, or the first object in sight if I cannot. I never pretended to be imaginative, after all, though once I did think myself clever (and compared to many people I was correct in that assessment).
This is not information you, whoever you are, find at all useful, I know; the ramblings of some old woman about names that would sound foreign to your ears. Languages, after all, change. Well, names are more important than you might think. There is a truth in them that people acknowledge without analyzing too deeply, which means they are an incredibly useful way to lie. If my Jamie taught me anything, that was it-- the beginnings of the art of subtly lying and blending in. I have never mastered it, unlike all else I have studied, but it’s not something you can learn through study. There’s not shame in admitting it, I am very old and wise and know much more than you do. I sometimes think my Jamie was born with it written into his genetic code, as sure as the markers for his blond hair and scraggly frame.
This old woman sometimes wonders what he would look like now, if his blond hair would go white or get that ugly dirty dishwater look most blond hair does when it loses its color. Mine is almost completely gray by now, and while it’s frivolous that still annoys me.
See how I ramble? Trying to put down concise words for posterity and this is all I can find in my head. What should I tell you, young one? Do you want to plumb my knowledge? It is far more vast than this silly pad of recycled paper could contain (I am glad to see you are recycling the paper. The nearest forest is still thousands of miles away, and shrinking from what I hear). I was once a priestess of the god of knowledge, you know, if a recalcitrant one and as they once said on an Earth “old habits die hard”. I have made a collection of facts, like some people collect geese, the truths of a many thousand worlds, or what I remember of them, but I doubt you would wish to listen. Most people do not care about truths of any world but their own, and even in then it is hard to care about that which does not apply within the deep cavern-like walls of their own fortress. Fortress city, now, I suppose. City-state, even.
There are three young children now travelling those worlds in my place. I found them when I first started feeling my joints ache and protest against the strain of moving, not long before this disease started I suppose (though I didn’t know it then), and they agreed to come with me. Said they had nothing left in their world. There is more to their story than that, but unlike my Jamie they are not gone and unlike me they are not soon to be, so I shan’t spill their secrets so easily as that. They might come back here, after all, and if they do you’d better have a hot meal ready for them.
Cancer is spread by your own body, turned traitor and hijacked against you. That is how I have managed to live this long. It, too, must follow the natural laws that govern the exiled. If I had caught a plague instead of developed polyps, I would have been dead long ago. There are many planets now that can cure cancer—including this one—and I know the treatments myself. But they are long and arduous, especially for a disease left to fester unnoticed as mine was, and by the time I realized it was there the treatment would have taken years.
I did not have years. Someone must always travel the ways of the worlds and keep them safe. And I am an old woman, older than a woman of mortal descent should ever be: I must have once feared death, but it is so long ago that I forget that day like I have forgotten so many things. I do not fear it now.
It seems strange how fast things have gone since I came to this place, the view of the desert stretching to the horizon through the window. I think it has only been two weeks.
I had to watch them leave, those three, the closest I have ever had to children (I shall likely never forgive my Jamie for that, even if I understood the logic of it as well as he did. I do not have much time left to do it in.) walked out that door with promises to be back soon. It seemed too much like the old times, back when time passed for me here as it does now. Little Talat, though I suppose he is not so little anymore (can he really be close to twenty now? The small boy with the bright smile and the freckled face? Ah, well, he is six feet now and girls act like idiots around him at the very least) even trying to make me laugh in this, Ukuam’s Chosen Medical Center. I am listed as Helen Hamilton here, did you know? You must have, this is probably with my file. It is a strange name, I know, even in this world that has some traffic between worlds. I suppose, actually, that you are a Hand if you are reading this. Maybe you would have been interested in my knowledge. If you are a secretary I shall be most displeased, you know, and millennia ago this planet knew the ramifications of my displeasure. But ah well; now I am old, and by the time you read this I shall be harmless and dead.
Forgive me, but the nurse tells me they are going to be bringing my medication. The care here is good, if you were curious. It is enough to make me proud, as if I had a stake in the managing this hospital that bears my name. But I have always been arrogant, you know. Who knows if I will have strength to write again? The somber young men and women say I shall be gone in a few days, when they think I cannot hear them (why do they always think you cannot hear them? Even a child knows how to fake being asleep). The children have not returned, but I have not expected them to. Such is the way of these things.
If you meet Uquar, tell him his Hand has finally gone to her rest and forgives him for the way he has treated her. It is a hard thing to keep a grudge for six thousand years, well-earned as it may be, though I have tried very hard. I would thank you to take care of my children, they have heard that they have safe harbor in the House of Uquar (the extended Holy City of Ukuam, now, ha? Ukuam is an incredibly horrific name. It makes the god of knowledge sound like some sort of fruit, and not an apple. He likely deserves that, or at least I do not feel guilty laughing at his expense. I know I deserve that much) and I will lay a curse on you if you make the words that I speak that should be truth into lies, you young people of this place. Do not say that curses do not exist, how can you know? Much of the old knowledge of magic has died out, hasn’t it, and I am very good at angry. You will just have to sit and wonder, little ignorant one, and make sure they have a place to sleep and good food to eat.
May the days of you and your city be calm, and look after this world like you always have,
Helen Haras-uquara Hamilton
Chosen of Uquar
First Queen of the United World
The preceding document was found in the possession of an elderly woman in the Ukuam’s Chosen Medical Center after her death. It was originally written on a hospital note pad, with a neat cover page addressing it to the head Hand of the House of Ukuam and an attached note from a nurse saying the woman requested no one but a full fisted Hand read it (archaic terminology for the Hand ranking system) if he thought his ‘idiot self above such things’. There are now many copies of it within the archives.
