A Checkup From the Neck Up

Faerie tales from beyond the veil to the streets of RhyDin

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JewellRavenlock
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What do you consider your greatest achievement?
My greatest achievement is..

I think..

Ugh. I guess my greatest achievement is not killing myself by accident or on purpose.

Mother of Nature that’s morbid.

Okay. Never mind. Be serious. My greatest achievement..

I achieved greatness in Faerie. I stretched my wings, and I went so high that they had to clip them. They had to bring me back down. I helped conquer armies and charm the courts. I made deals and alliances. I took lives. My name is known through many parts of the Summerlands: whispered in admiration and hatred. But none of those things I achieved were truly great. They are meaningless to me.

My children. They are perhaps not an achievement, but they are the greatest part of me.

Life is a funny thing sometimes. I never wanted children.

Wait. That’s a lie.

There was a time I did want children. I thought having children meant I would finally have someone, a family, that would love me. I would have someone to care for and nurture. I wouldn’t be alone anymore. I thought a child could give my life meaning. Give me meaning. Make me worthwhile. Make me somebody. A child would mean I was not worthless.

A poor little fool’s hopes and dreams. They were crushed so far away and long ago. I don’t even know that girl anymore.

After that, I didn’t want children. That is not a lie. Maybe it’s a partial one. The responsibility, the lack of freedom, the selflessness, nurturing, kind, sweet, motherly. I wasn’t made for those things! I am not those things. They are foreign to me. I was made to be free. I love my freedom. But having my children, loving them.. they brought out the best part of me.

Keeping them alive and happy and well against my own inclinations and nature and all the odds and enemies against us was my greatest achievement.

I suppose that makes me an epic failure.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

Which talent would you most like to have?
I want my magic back.

I want the water to sing and talk to me again, to whisper in my ear as it falls from the sky. I want this silence to go away! It is so empty.

I want to do more than just see the ebb and flow of energy around me. I want to grab a hold of it and bend it to my will. Shape it. Form it. Use it.

I want it to make me powerful again.

I have many talents and skills that people are probably envious of but they are not enough. I always want more.

I guess I also wouldn’t mind knowing how to cook too: A simple, mundane talent that could prove more useful than all the others. A girl needs to eat!
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What are you ashamed of?
Where do I even begin? If I start a list, will there ever be an end?

Losing my children and being unable to save them. There is no greater shame than this.

Losing the greater part of my magic. I am ashamed of allowing my magic to be taken from me.

The many terrible things I did in the name of the Ta-Neer family.

My inability to maintain a healthy relationship. Clearly there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

I am ashamed of how desperate I have been for love. It’s pathetic.

I am ashamed because love makes me weak and vulnerable when all I want to be is strong and untouchable.

I am ashamed that I am not stronger. I am not strong enough to control my emotions. I am not strong enough to appear cool and unaffected. I am not strong enough to check my tears. I fall to pieces and break apart.

I am ashamed of the sympathy I feel at times for others because it is a weakness. I do not want to have fellow-feeling for those downtrodden and pressed upon. I do not want to care. Life is hard. If you can’t hack it? Get out. I had to fight and that has made me strong. I will not be dragged down.

I should be ashamed by my trust. What is it about RhyDin that makes me drop my guard? I cannot help but surrender to the city’s magic and the warmth of its denizens.

I carry the weight of shame for being a terrible wife.

I am ashamed of my body’s limitations.

My inability to move on from things is shameful. They linger in my mind and heart, bringing me the familiar weaknesses of the past.

The wounds I inflict upon myself: each one is a sign of weakness, the inability to control myself, a punishment. They are shameful scars.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
When all your actions are nothing but futility.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What are your faults and weaknesses?
I’m not really sure those terms are mutually exclusive. A weakness is not necessarily a fault and a fault isn’t necessarily a weakness. I like to be aware of my faults because they can certainly lead to weakness.

I am a person who, in the past, has easily given way to anger. Marc Franco didn’t call me Lil Miss Anger Management without cause. However, in giving way to anger, I exposed myself to the weakness of acting irrationally or without forethought. I have taken great strides to remain more level headed in most situations.

I am occasionally impulsive. I don’t always think things through. Ishmerai says I am rash because I react emotionally first before I let my brain catch up.

I am a fool for compliments.

I am not as guarded as I should be. I trust too easily. I let people get too close to me. These are faults that are certainly weaknesses.

I crave control.

Love and attachment are not faults but they are weaknesses. How can I be faulted for something that comes so naturally to me?
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What is your idea of perfect happiness?
There is no such thing as perfect happiness. There is enough poison in this world to spoil any happiness one might find.

The closest a person can get to knowing perfect happiness is being loved unconditionally, but even that will eventually fail or fade.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What does love mean?
To put someone before yourself in all ways: before your own personal satisfaction, safety, desires, and ambition. When you do that, it means you have crossed over lust, like and fondness into the realm of love.

There are very few people left that I love.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

How would you like to die?
I don’t really know that I would like to die at all, actually. If I must, then I hope it is something that will keep my name on people’s tongues for ages to come.

“Do you remember the Legendary Empress? It took over forty men to bring her down, and even then she fought tooth and nail! Oh how the bodies of the dead were littered around her. Not one person walked away unscathed.”

Even in death people will remember my name either to praise or damn it.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What do you love about life?
I love the thrill of a fight.

I love the rush of adrenaline when doing something I shouldn’t.

I love to be in control and do what I want.

I love the gentle brush of someone’s hand against my face.

I love the burning sting of my fist connecting with someone’s jaw.

I love the sound of the ocean and laughing and taking my shoes off to dance in a patch of moon-light. I love kissing and ice cream and taking ridiculously long baths. I love to sing when no one can hear me and the warmth of sunshine on my face. I love to play pretend and make people hurt when they deserve it. I love pretty dresses and compliments. I love being silly with my friends. I love having friends to be silly with. I love pretty dresses and things that sparkle. I love dizzying heights and forget-me-nots and the company of a loved one. I love winning and being right and pizza. I love walking on the beach at night and the sound of beautiful music.

I love waking up every morning and hearing the hum of the city all around me and knowing that I am alive to live in RhyDin once more.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

What are you afraid of?
There are many types of fears.

Most people don’t know this, but I am fairly claustrophobic. I don’t love small, tightly enclosed spaces where I feel trapped. That’s not the worst of it though. I am actually horribly, irrationally, afraid of being buried alive… again. I hate being underground. I don’t mean in the great cavernous halls of the Dwarf and Faerie kingdoms but in something like the sewers. Tight, cramped spaces, devoid of light, with no way out. My heart races, panic blinds me, and The Empress that has shown no fear in the face of everything and anything else is devoid of all sense of reason. It’s horribly embarrassing.

Most of my fears are of a different sort. I fear losing the ones that I love. I fear feeling powerless. Being powerless. Unable to protect myself or the people I care about.

I fear failure so why set goals I may not reach?

I fear that people will see through the act and then see me as I am.

I fear disappointing my friends and family. I’m afraid they will take away their love and affection and leave me with nothing.

I am afraid of being forgotten.

I am afraid of being alone.
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

“So what did you think of my little writing exercise, Jewell?” Helen asked, curious and unable to read the casually guarded expression on her patient’s face.

“Oh.. it was fine. I suppose it gave me some good insight into myself or something like that.”

“Wonderful!” Dr. Bronner was not put-off by the way she had to needle information out of Jewell. Their conversations often required such techniques to get the Faerie talking. “Would you feel comfortable sharing some of the entries with me?”

The troublesome Empress grinned, settling back comfortably on the couch. “Well I would. Except I burned it.”

“You what?”

“I burned it. The whole damn thing.” At Helen’s uncomprehending expression, Jewell slowed her words down: “I finished writing in the notebook, looked through it for a few minutes, and then found a metal bucket and a box of matches and lit it on fire.”

“I.. why?”

She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. You told me to be as honest as I could in the notebook, so I was. I can’t have something like that falling into the wrong hands now, can I? No one should know what much about me. So I turned it to ash.”
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

“So Stephen Kidd returned from Faerie and according to you he has clearly lost his mind.”

Jewell shrugged nonchalantly, bent at the waist with her fingertips brushing the floor, “Certainly seems that way.”

“And how do you feel about this?” Helen asked hesitantly after hearing of the scene with the fake baby and Lain’s smashing of it.

“Annoyed,” was the blue-haired woman’s clipped answer.

“Annoyed at whoever in Faerie did this to him?”

“No,” Jewell huffed as she slowly uncurled to sit up straight, “annoyed with him. More than annoyed. Furious in fact.” She just didn’t have the energy at the moment to conjure up such fury. Instead, she just felt tired.

“Doesn’t that seem a little unfair?”

“Hardly.” She crossed both legs and arms as she leaned back into the couch. “I warned him, didn’t I? Maybe I didn’t go into explicit detail, but I told him what they would do, what they were capable of. After all, had I not seen it first hand? But he didn’t listen. I begged yet he still ignored me. But he didn’t just ignore me, he ignored all my efforts, all the actions I took on his behalf to make sure this did not happen. Ungrateful! I was even willing to help him in his need. All he had to do was say my name. They wouldn’t have been able to stop me then. Stubborn, strong-willed pirate.” Jewell ended her little diatribe with a scowl, “No, Dr. Bronner, I do not have any pity left.”

“Is there something you could do now to help him?” Helen asked. She was not able to force Jewell to be sympathetic if she was not so inclined, but she didn’t want to encourage her apathy.

“Perhaps,” The Empress responded noncommittally. Here was evidence of the cold and uncaring lady of Faerie who did not lift a finger to assist those who had crossed her.

“Jewell..” Helen warned, “be reasonable. Helping him would benefit the both of you.”

She turned her head away, “I didn’t say I could help him even if I wanted to, which is not to say that I do want to help because I don’t. He has made his bed. Let him lie in it.”

“Vindictiveness is hardly an attractive trait, Jewell.”

“I’m really past caring.”
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

She looked small and vulnerable, rather different from that woman who had claimed a victory in the Iron Fists Garden just the night before. Her elbows dug into her thighs as she cushioned her chin in her hand, badly bruised arms neither hidden nor disguised. “You go along thinking you’re fine.. but then the cracks and fissures start to show and you realize you’re not.” Helen Bronner, who had seen Jewell more sporadically in recent months, just let her talk. “Did you know that my first attempts at really mastering glamour was to hide the bruises he would leave on my body?” For some reason, The Empress smirked. “It seems so long ago most of the time. A different lifetime. A different me.” Her eyes found the bruises on her arms again and saw them repeated a dozen times, fifty, a hundred. Bruises decorating every inch of her body. “But then during weeks like this.. it’s different. Those memories feel more recent. Immediate. And I realize that a hundred years can pass, but not a single damn thing has changed.”

“I think a lot has changed, Jewell. You’re an incredibly strong woman. You just have faults, fears, and insecurities the same as everyone else.”

She just shrugged. “You know the funny part about all of this,” waving her hand, a gesture that somehow indicated the whole mess her week had been. “There would certainly be horrific irony if the article was true and I actually was pregnant. All Stephen ever wanted was a baby. He wanted us to have a family together. But I couldn’t.. wouldn’t give him one.” She wondered a moment which one it really was: wouldn’t or couldn’t? “And then I get pregnant with a guy who I’m pretty sure would go into hiding and never return if I really was pregnant.” Jewell laughed, a rusty sound with just a hint of desperation. “I would run and hide too. Who in their right mind would ever want me to be a mother to their children, anyway? I’m a mockery of womanhood. Oh yes, I can dance, play music and sing, paint, make polite conversation, be charming, smile and say a million simple and vapid things, but I can’t... I’m not...” she buried her face in her hands, shaking her head back and forth.

“There is nothing wrong with any of those things,” Dr. Bronner reminded her kindly.

Jewell let her hands slide away from her face, “Then why do I always feel like they make me less than others? Less.. important. Less lovable. Less worthy.”

“Because you are always in a state of punishing yourself, Jewell.” It was a subject they had been over countless times now. “Earlier, you mentioned some good advice your friend Tara had given you. What was it again?”

“She basically told me I need to stop clinging to the past and being so.. regretful. I need to enjoy what I have now. To love what I have now.” It had been hard to hear that from her bestie, who she knew would only tell her the truth. Her words had cut through all the pretense and playful facade.

“Don’t you think that starts with loving yourself first?”
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Post by JewellRavenlock »

“You seem rather busy lately, Jewell. I can’t open a paper or tabloid without seeing your name splashed all over it: captaining a successful Hydra team, becoming a Warlord, opening a new hotel, running around the city with that handsome half-elf you fancy, purchasing some rather large property, challenging to become Overlord, buying the contracts of prostitutes to start your own sex slave business.” That last one made Jewell smile boldly. She had found that article particularly hilarious and readily agreed that she would make a splendid Madam. “How are you managing to do all of this and not go crazy?”

Her smile faltered with the doctor’s question. “Keeping busy is the only way to keep myself from going crazy. The second I stop, I feel all that familiar despair just waiting to drown me again.”
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