Finally I have time to come back to this image.

On Monday I met with Lori and she did a process with me. Her processes generally involve her asking me questions about a subject that is making me uneasy that I asked for help dealing with. The point of the asking is to listen inwardly for an answer.

My answer to one of the questions was this:

Two figures on a plain. One is a woman warrior in full plate mail. She doesn’t have a helmet, and she has long blonde hair. The other is some sort of monster. Most of the monster is outside the image, and all that I see of it is three or four tentacles. They are fighting each other. They are dirty and exhausted and both spattered with blood.

My unconscious is, if nothing else, creative.

The strange part was that in answer to another question, something like: “And when is this problem not a problem?” My first inner response the the question was: “When I am out, with people, looking outward instead of inward.”

This lucidity was followed up by another image: the two fighters sitting just out of reach of each other, panting. Like they were finally able to get a break.

And that is where we are at.

“Ishmael,” I call. I call and he is there. “Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” he says. “Though you really don’t need me for this.”

“No?” I ask. “Then what do I need you for?”

“To remind you,” he says. I take his hand and lead him down the hill to the warriors. We are deep in the Jungle, so deep that I don’t recognize it.

I can hear the warrior’s heavy gasps for air as we come closer to them.

“Please,” I call out. “Could you stop for a bit? I need to talk with you.”

There is not even a hitch in their battle. I frown. Usually that works. Most things that live in my head acknowledge my wants as something important to make time for.

“Not with them,” Ishmael sounds almost cheerful. “They’ll keep going at it till you look away.”

“Don’t tell me I need to do something ridiculous like close my eyes and approach.”

“Fascinating idea,” Ishmael says. “I’ll pay you to try it.”

“Sadist. You’re supposed to be helping.”

“Aren’t I?”

Clang, clang, clang go the blows the tentacles score on the warrior’s mail.

Gritting my teeth, I say: “You’d better have Bob at the ready.” And then I march down to put myself between blade and flesh.

Neither creature could check their blows in time; a tentacle walloped my back, and the flat of the blade caught me on the shins. Well, I thought as I staggered, pain ricocheting through me, at least she managed to turn it.

“Who are you?” The warrior-woman demands. I’m bent over, trying to work out which hurts worse.

“Funny,” I reply. “That’s what I was going to ask you.”

“I am Shethged,” the warrior replies. “This is Vantoo. Now get out of the way. We are destined to fight this battle to a bloody end.”

“Really.” I turn to Ishmael, who has walked over to a safe distance. “They can lie to me?”

“You lie to yourself all the time. Incoming.” I hear the swish of the blade and I know I can’t do anything to stop it. This is going to hurt.

Except that I am surrounded by glowing pink energy, shimmery and translucent. I turn to see the warrior’s blade stuck in the pink energy. She is tugging at it, but the sword is stuck fast. I hear chuckling coming from the many-tentacled thing.

“Darzee?” I ask.

“Here,” she replies. She steps up next to me, her form diaphanous and indistinct. “That was close.”

“It would have hurt, but they can’t really damage me,” I say. “But thank you for the caring thought.”

Darzee looks over at Ishmael uncertainly. He doesn’t move, just stares back at her. Darzee looks away from both of us.

Huh. I grab Darzee’s hand to make sure she doesn’t rabbit on me, because clearly I’m going to need her. Then I turn to the many-tentacled thing. “Your turn. Who are you?”

Then I stagger, as “Shethged” has launched herself against Darzee’s shield hard enough to move me and it. “I must fight,” she pants, and reigns down more blows upon me.

“This is ridiculous,” I mutter. This is *my* head. I blow away Darzee’s barrier with a burst of energy that I redirect at the warrior. “Sleep,” I say, and she staggers as if I’ve hit her. I can feel my own energies shift as whatever she is crumples, unconscious. I’m starting to get a light headache. My palms tingle with unleashed power. Whatever she is, she has been using up a huge amount of my personal energy to maintain this fight. I feel a little light-headed.

“Okay,” I say, transferring my grip from Darzee’s hand to her shoulder. She lets me lean on her silently, and I squeeze her shoulder a bit in gratitude. We turn back to the many-tentacled thing. “I have a wood chipper and I’m not afraid to use it. Who are you?”

“Please,” it says. “Free me.”

I can feel my energy still shifting, and my forehead is tingling. “You have a story,” I say. “Tell me.”

The Story of the Many-Tentacled Thing

I don’t remember what I used to be. All I know is that I have not always been a many-tentacled thing, and I didn’t live here. I lived somewhere with meadows. There were flowers and butterflies. I love butterflies.

But one day something picked me up and shook me. And they kept shaking me until I thought all my bones were going to break. I couldn’t even tell what was shaking me. It looked like a concrete arm. It wanted something from me but I didn’t have anything to give it. Then it threw me into an oubliette for I-don’t-know how long. I missed the sunlight and the butterflies. I missed them so much it felt like I hadn’t eaten for weeks. I don’t eat but I was starving. It was awful.

Then the oubliette faded away. And as it faded I became this many-tentacled thing. And when the walls were gone I was a monster and that woman rushed at me, and we’ve been fighting ever since. Every once in a while she takes a break, so I can take a break too. But the rest of the time we fight.

“I see,” I say, although I really don’t see. “If you don’t like this life, why keep fighting? Why not just let this warrior woman win?”

The many-tentacled thing shivered. “Oh no,” it says. “That would be much, much worse.”

Balthazar watches me put a canister on the ground. “What’s that?” He asks.

“Napalm.”

“Oooh dear. I’ll get Darzee.”

“I wasn’t planning on using it on you, you know.”

The sun is directly overhead, and the Oasis bakes. The blanket of heat is mildly comforting, but not enough to distract me. The Bonfire before me burns without heat. The symbol of fire is all I need, and it won’t throw off warmth until the sun sets. The river slinks by behind the Bonfire, quiet and smooth, looking to keep out of my attention.

Darzee and Balathazar approach me cautiously. “Why the napalm, beloved?” Darzee asks.

“Because I’m going to find today and kill it,” I reply. I don’t get how the hose and nozzle attaches to the canister, and while I don’t want to burn the Oasis down, I’m also not in a mood to figure out logistics.

“You can’t kill today,” Darzee says, a little timidly. “You’re still in it.”

“My Oasis, my rules.”

“Um,” Darzee says. She looks at Balthazar. He shrugs.

“How can we help?” Balthazar asks.

I throw down the hose. “You can tell me what in the hell went wrong!”

They start making reassuring noises and come forward to hug and hold me and I step back. “Guys. I love you, I really do. But not right now. I need answers.”

Darzee sucks in her breath. “Anger, huh? You’re moving up the emotional scale pretty fast these days.”

“You’re going to figure it out, you know,” Balthazar says.

When I first built the Oasis, I created a form for myself. I was so disconnected with all my internal states back then that I had a hard time seeing from my own vantage point internally. The Oasis always appeared as sort of a diorama that I, like the the other beings in the Oasis, moved through. I would observe the character I designated as myself moving from a high vantage point.

I have built up a sense of self (and of Self) again, and now live comfortably in my own skin in the Oasis. But that empty vessel I created to pretend to be me in was a Huntress, with white skin and hair and white leathers. And Balthazar’s words of platitudinal reassurance made me so angry that I became the Huntress in an instant, and pulled a long, wicked white glass knife out of the sheath at my hip. The Bonfire flared up with a roar and poured forth heat, and the stream frothed and ran at a wild pace, burbling and crashing over rocks.

I can see Balthazar swallowing hard. I’m watching the muscles in his neck twitch, his Adam’s apple bob.

“You have unfinished business,” Darzee announces and grabs me by the arm. I swing at her but she steps aside before my knife comes anywhere near her. It’s all the time she needed; we are back on the plain and the warrior is there. She has nearly killed the many-tentacled thing. It bleeds and bellows pitifully.

I know exactly what to do. Wielding the knife like a machete, I rush the warrior. She twirls to meet me and cold iron screeches against the white glass. For a few moments we fence, and I feel thrill and bloodlust chase down every vein and capillary. And then I let it take me over and I press her hard, and she bleeds. The warrior falls back, and I cut her and I cut her and I cut her.

She never says a word. She never asks for mercy. Her face never changes one iota from a fixed, grim mien. Not even when I beat aside her blade and run her through, punching right through her armor. Screaming, I bring her down and pin her to the ground with my thrust. She lays motionless, her eyes fixed upon me. She makes no move toward the white glass blade.

“That’s right,” I say. “Stay there and shut up.” My hands and forearms are covered in her blood. I stand and go over to the many-tentacled thing. I rub the blood of her enemy in her wounds, and the thing no longer bleeds. The bellowing stops, and silence descends on the plain. I stand. Darzee is watching me, and Balthazar is here too. He’s brought Ishmael, and Bagheera has tagged along.

I want to tell them to go away. It is my head, mine! And they had no right to stand there so *opaquely* and not be helpful.

Of course, I’d turn on them if they tried.

“Great Stone Dragon,” I say.

Great Stone Dragon, or Tau for short, followed me home from an Asian art exhibit in Portland that I went to one day. I still don’t know what piece he was hiding in, but a few hours after the exhibit, he playfully got my attention. He’d been traveling with the exhibit for a number of years, waiting for someone he liked to come along. Turns out he really liked me.

I’d always wished to be friends with a dragon.

He appears next to me in his man-shaped form. He is a water dragon, so he is as blue as Balathzar is red. His features are slightly indistinct, and the form rather resembles a man made out of blue clay. It is a convenience to me, nothing more.

“Tau. Thank you.” He presence is so calming. I can almost hear the wash of waves or the run of a river when I stand near him. I am suddenly so, so tired. I lean against him, and he wraps us both in a richly-colored silk robe.

“I need help,” I say in his ear. “Please.”

“Come,” he says, and leads me back over to the many-tentacled thing. We stand over her. She doesn’t move.

“What are you?” I ask.

“I don’t remember. I told you what I know.”

I feel the faint stirrings of anger again. “Shut UP. Yes you do. You are what you are. Be what you are, right now. I command you.”

Tau raises an eye ridge at me, and the many-tentacled thing begins to moan and shake.

“STOP IT! I am tired of dramatics. Take the form of whatever you were born into my Oasis as.”

There is a short, sharp earthquake as the Oasis shifts and groans to support the sudden change. I fall into Tau and he steadies me. The plain is a meadow and not barren, but filled with flowers and butterflies and soap bubbles. The many-tentacled thing is gone, and instead a thin little fairy lies motionless on the ground.

The warrior growls like a cat in heat but does not move.

“Oh, you fixed me!” The fairy jumps up and claps her cute little glowy hands together. I hate her with all the hate that I can muster.

“I killed the wrong monster,” I said. The fairy pouts.

Tau rubs my arm gently. “It is much deeper than that.”

“They lie to me with every word and motion. All I know is that they hate each other.”

“Are you sure?” Tau asks. “If nothing is as it seems with them, how can that be true?”

Thoughtful, I raise my arm. The warrior is lifted by my will and floats over to us. I yank my sword out of her abdomen. The fairy recoils.

“They were both one,” I say. Tau nods. I am so tired now. “Tau, could you help me here?”

He steps forward and mutters some harsh syllables. There is a loud shriek like a braking train, and they are merged into one. The Oasis groans again.

This time, there is moonlight and a wide, circular pool. It reflects the stars, or perhaps the stars are in the pool. Clever rock formations line the pool, and deer wander through this small clearing in the deep woods. I sit on one of the stones. Tau kisses the top of my head. A hand rests on my shoulder, and I look up to see Ishmael smiling down at me.

“You doubt,” he said. “Oh my love, how can you doubt when you have come so far that you can do this?”

And on his words the waters of the pool froth and part and rise up to form the thin figure of a woman made of water. The gems in the crown on my head shine softly in pleased remembrance of her, but I do not remember.

“Who are you?” I ask. I feel inelegant to her graceful arc and demeanor, but I have so little energy left to spare. I have no room for delicacy.

“I am your star,” she says. “Your guiding star. The star you wish on.”

I rub my forehead. “Someone? Please? Small words.”

“When do you wish on a star?” Ishmael asks with a vaguely rhetorical air.

“When you want something,” I reply.

Tau leans into me. “You only wish on a star when you have hope that the thing you wish for could come true. Otherwise, you wouldn’t bother wishing, would you?”

Darzee comes up from behind and puts her arms around me. “You have been able to think positively. You’ve even been able to have faith. But you haven’t had hope that things will work out for a very, very, *very* long time.” I wrap her hands, laced gently together and resting on my collarbone, in mine.

“And the warrior and the many-tentacled thing?”

“Smoke and mirrors,” Tau said. “You tried to substitute iron will and pure determination for hope. Then you turned the joy in fulfillment, the gratitude, into something ugly, into a monster.”

Bagheera is purring again. “You have done so well,” Ishmael says. I feel a half-hearted effort to turn aside his praise, but it is weak. He is right. I have done well.

“There is no confidence without hope,” the Star says. The Star. Her name, I know suddenly, is Raiden. “WIthout the strength to hope for something better, there is no basis or even reason for confidence.” Raiden grows brighter, and trails of light fall from her as she moves.

I am so tired now I can barely stay upright. I lean against Darzee. “Sleep,” she says. “I’ll hold you till the morning, and everything will be better then.”