"Meeting my Muse" by K ´Karahatay´ Fink

In school I took a creative writing class.   About halfway through the semester we were sent to interview our muses, ask them to write a poem for us.   Mine was different from the other’s….   Nikki’s was a feminine, mischievous cat/woman who, it seemed, just wanted attention and got it by getting herself, and consequently, Nikki into trouble.    Danielle’s?  Well, I don’t remember much about Danielle’s.   Suffice it to say that hers was also a woman who was troubled at heart.   But, so were Nikki and Danielle themselves.    No, My muse, my muse was different ….

Because he talked to me in my head it was easy to set up an appointment with him.   There was a room, a portal between my world and his.  Everyone has a portal, but they alone can find it – themselves and the beings of the worlds it connects to.   My room was white, and very square, with average sized human doors.

-- Day 1:

I am early to the appointment.  I’d never actually met my muse in person before, and I was excited.   I’d been writing the stories he’d whispered in my ear for many years now.   Mostly it was the story of Kishone Quarfiet, the Alicorn, and her legacy.  At the time I’d been writing her parent’s stories, her father, Korrben Ariface, and her mother, Tatanian….   As I sit pondering who my muse might actually be a large, lovely dragon with whom I am fairly familiar with (but only by reputation) came into the room. 

“Good day sir!” I greet him cheerfully.

He looks at me irritably.

“Can you talk?”  I ask.

I see in my head an image of him biting off my upper half, and I realize he’s having a bad day.

His large body squeezes through the door meant for a creature many times smaller than him.  I try not to laugh at the ruffled dragon, but he just looks so funny!

Then, in walks Korrben Ariface!  My beautiful Korr!  He’s real then!  Could he be my muse?

“Hello, my beautiful.”  I whisper, awed at the sight!

*Hello….?*  confused he looks at me as I run my hand over his soft, soft cheek.  Of course, he speaks directly to my mind, in a thought speak type of way, just as he does in my stories.  If he could’ve, he’d have raised his eyebrow….. instead he looks at me full on – with those deep green eyes.

“Hello, Korr”  He’s not as big as I thought he would be.   Sadly I realize he’s not my muse, and that his being there would delay my muses’ coming.  “Excuse me, please, I need to have my muse eat- er, um, write a poem. - You’d better leave.”  He seems relieved as though being around me distressed him.

I’m a little disappointed that Korr isn’t my muse.  I’ve grown so attached to the Pegasus.   I find it’s hard not to fall in a sort of love with the creatures you write about.  To become so close to them, to know everything about them, even though they’ll never know you…

Korr leaves.  I follow him to the door and see there is a grassy plain surrounded by towering mountains.  I’ve never actually looked through the door of my portal before, but I recognize this place.  He’s taken me here so many times…

I walk into the field and am struck by all my senses.  The room was warm and still.  This place is full of life, green beyond green, there is a crisp breeze that smells of all the pleasant things of nature.   And, for the first time, I really smell it.  I really feel it. Magic!  It surrounds me and becomes me.

 The irritable dragon from before returns.   I decide to try to be a little more cordial with him, and a little less talkative.  After all, he’s been in my mind enough times…

“Please?”  I gesture toward the door.

            He’s still angry, but he goes in.  I follow.  I smile warmly.

“I will be your scribe” I offer.  He gives me a look of tolerance and resignation.

            I can’t understand his words, but he understands me.  Then, in my mind I hear him, I understand him, and I begin to write…

There in the dark forest I saw a fog /the fog was dark

I landed in the darkness beside the pond /the pond was large

My love flew down to me, she landed beside me

Her great silver wings folded beside me.

But he was there.

Day 2

            I’m in the room again, waiting for him.   I want to know more about him, about my dragon.  Over the night I’ve thought of better questions to ask him.  He’s just so hard to communicate with sometimes!  It’s exasperating!  As he comes in I wonder if he feels the same way about me.

“Do you have a name?” I ask him.

            He nods his head.

Talk to me! I shout in my head.   I don’t know if he can hear it, but I surely hope not.  He’s in a better mood today, but I feel it would not be wise to laugh yet at or with him yet.  I won’t bring up his mate.   He didn’t finish his tale yesterday, but I know now that he will finish it in his own time.   I cannot force this magnificent being.

“What do you like to do, sir?” I offer to let him take the lead.  It’s only polite.

He doesn’t answer, but we overhear my friends outside discussing their muses. 

“You know them already, don’t you?” I ask, curious.

-Yes.  (He responds in my head)

            I grin and nod, at a loss for something new to say, but for once he answered me!

“I’m not very good at talking…” I admit.

            He nods. 

-So I can tell.  (Again, he answers in my head as I cannot comprehend his vocal speech, he is a dragon, after all.)

            I smile.  He smiles, showing his many teeth, I’m not afraid.  In fact, I’m fascinated.  It’s a beautiful smile.  He’s a beautiful dragon.

Another silence.

“Do you enjoy being in my head so much?” I try to get a conversation going.

-Indeed.  (his response)

            Another silence, longer this time.  Were not good friends yet.  We may never be.

“You’re not as domineering or so troubled and troubling as everyone else’s muses.  Why is that?” I wonder out loud to him.

            He only smiles knowingly.  (he’s so frustrating to work with!!!)

They talk outside the door and it distracts me.  He’s gone again

Day 3

            Today, I’m at least going to get his name!  We’ve been given another assignment for our muses.   We’re each writing a “magazine” of our own works and our muse is to write the introduction.  Great.   I can’t even get him to tell me his name and now I need a poem and an introduction!

            Finally he walks in.   He’s definitely fond of going on his own time!

“Would you write for me?”  I ask.

-You cannot read my writing.  You cannot speak my language. -  he responds in my head.

            Blast!  There I go, asking the wrong questions again!

“Will you narrate for me?”  I try.

            No answer.  I take that as a yes, but clearly he’s waiting for me to start….

“What is your name?”

I see him settling down, like a cat.  He gives me an approving look and I know he’s finally going to tell me.  Success!  Here we go!!

I am arisath.  Old, but not so old that I have not love, young, but not so young that I am not wise.

            A long pause.  He walks out the door and I know I am to follow.  This time it is not the grassy plain.  We’ve returned to the shady pool of water that may be a pond, may be a river, may be a lake – to the one he spoke of on the first day.  The trees are the dark emerald green of the flush of summer, water full, and warmth just right.  I know this time, this place – it is the Time of the Prime.

It was in the Time of the Prime, the high point of not just a year or even a century, but the best time of a millennia.  I met my Love then, my Love with the silver wings.  We returned there once every ten days for yet another millennia for a dragon’s life is long.  One day she was there before I, and before I knew anything, She was never to be mine again.  My Love.  I buried her in the water – in the deep blue of the water shadowed by the dark pure green of the flush of the prime.  The prime just passing.  The prime long gone.

Revenge was not my life, my life was for my Love.  These are my writings, my mind expressed to you.  Here is my world.

Seringath Azteroth

            He left me there, to ponder his words.   But I had them, I had my introduction and I knew that when the time was right he would whisper to me the poem I would need.   So this was my muse.   Seringath Azteroth.  The narrator of all my stories I’d ever written.  They were his stories.  They were the stories of his life.   I knew, suddenly, what had happened to him.  I knew his whole life story, and now, I knew why he told it to me.