Asleep in the Fen

III

Asthore was not sure she really woke. Her eyes did not open, but somehow she saw. She was in the dark again sitting in the fen. Something was hidden beneath the soil. Someone was near. They had covered their head. She couldn’t see what they looked like. They were digging beside where she sat. She tilted her head. On the ground a few feet away was another figure lying peacefully in the muck.

Asthore could tell she had slept for a very long time. She looked around. In the distance she could see an unnatural amber glow. She was sure she had never seen it before. It discolored the sky in a strange way. It made the stars harder to see. Asthore examined the marsh she sat in. The ground had moved away to reveal something dark beneath it. That was her head. Her skin had changed dramatically. She saw a little tuft of fragile looking orange hair. It unnerved her. How long had she been asleep in the peat? 

Something rustled, and she paid attention to the figure again. It was patting the dirt now, as if it had buried something. Asthore began to fall back asleep. Someone else was coming. The figure stood, paused over Asthore’s bed, and then it departed, and Asthore sank back into her slumber.

This time, she did not feel like she slept very long at all. She faded in and out, as she had done whenever she would have a fever. Kiandra had always managed to heal her. 

What woke her now were the hands touching her. Shovels dug around her. Somebody was taking her out of her bed very carefully, as if afraid she would come apart in their hands. They wore odd clothes made of strange materials. All of them wore trousers, even the women, without shame. A woman with short black hair cradled Asthore’s head as they wrapped her up. Asthore felt comfortable with her. She did not worry about whatever was happening as long as the woman held her. The fabric Kiandra had left her in had fallen to pieces in the earth long ago. They wrapped her naked body in white sheets. She had never seen something so bright. Then they placed her in what must have been a carriage, except it was metal and horseless. She could not make sense of it all. She went back to sleep.

They took Asthore a long way from home. Ultimately, they decided to let her rest for the night. They left her in a strange room on a table of silver. It was cold. She listened to them talk in a language she didn’t understand. The world had changed more drastically than her body had. It was overwhelming. A sense of calm overtook her, and she looked upon it all with slight curiosity. Kiandra had warned her that fear was a dangerous enemy.

Just outside, on the steps of the building, there was a perky woman talking to a man holding a black box. “-the most well preserved bog body discovered to date. Reportedly, the full body of a woman has been found. Obviously, it’s too soon to say how old she is or how long she’s been buried, but I can say, I have seen her and she is magnificent. To see her in person has such an impact, Brian. She even has a full head of red hair, a true Irish lass. Just incredible.”

Asthore wanted desperately to understand a single word they said, but she could not. Nothing in this world made sense. She was trying to get a better look at the black box. It had glass in it, and small lights. There were lots of buttons. She affected one. The man looked troubled and made a noise. The woman responded to a question no one asked. Asthore was confused, but she was confused by everything, and it seemed to be natural to them. She affected another button. 

The man grunted again, then said “Hey, Siobhan, camera’s just died on me.”

“Reggie,” she said, her voice no longer the chirpy version of itself. “I thought you said you had put new batteries in!” 

“I did!”

They didn’t notice the person walking back up the steps, but Asthore could see her. It was the same woman who had held her so gently. She made her way through the building and back into the room where Asthore slept on a cold, silver cot. The room was full of silver fixtures and bright, false light that provided no warmth. 

The woman approached the dark and wrinkled body. Time had addled the features: it's skin was dark and leathery, the hair had lost its luster, the dirt had flattened the curls against the scalp, and she had lost some body mass, of course, but mostly Asthore had remained as she was. Peaceful. Asthore could see the body and know it was her’s, but she did not feel attached to it. It meant about as much to her as the metal beneath it.

The woman was smiling, but Asthore couldn’t tell. She could sense the woman in her presence, and she could tell she had short dark hair, and tan skin, but she was still blurry. Asthore could not seem to focus on her. Maybe that was why the woman outside, Siobhan, had not noticed her. Maybe her eyes had simply slipped over her. She was so easy to miss. 

Asthore felt the woman standing at her head, looking down at her face. She had to be very careful. Asthore was in a delicate state. If she moved too fast or used too much force, she could damage the body. She placed the fingertips of each hand, featherlight, on either temple of the head. 

Asthore’s vision came into sharp focus. The world made more sense. She understood her surroundings. The woman was smiling down on her. She had sleek black hair that hung over her brow and was cut along her jaw. Her russet skin was flawless besides a scar on her bottom lip, tautened with her smile. She looked so beautiful and familiar. Asthore felt warm.

Kiandra.

“Is maith a fheiceann tú arís é, a stór,” Kiandra said softly.

Asthore could not move no matter how much she wanted to. She wanted to reach up and pull Kiandra to her. Though sleep had made it seem so quick, she knew they had been parted for too long. She ached to feel Kiandra’s touch and hold her again. To lay with her as they had just before Asthore slumbered.

As if Kiandra could hear her, she bowed her face closer to Asthore’s. “Dúisigh,” she murmured. Then she put her lips on Asthore’s and exhaled gently. 

Asthore retched as her body tried to breathe. Her body was trying to get rid of the foreign things in it. Kiandra did not regard her as if she was fragile anymore. She placed her hands over Asthore’s chest and pressed down. Asthore coughed up black matter that had settled in her lungs. Kiandra pressed down again, helping Asthore’s body expel the substance. It was a torturous process for both. 

As Asthore continued to heave, she felt moisture hit her skin. Kiandra had begun pouring water over her body to hydrate it. Kiandra was muttering again as she unwrapped the sheets, just as she had before. Where the water touched Asthore, the wrinkled brown layer started to peel away to reveal fresh, firm skin underneath. The leathery coating fell to the floor in strips. Water sank into the new layer, leaving it smooth and a little pink, but soon Asthore looked like herself again. 

Kiandra circled back to Asthore’s head as she tried to cough up the last of the decay. She doused Asthore with the rest of the water. Asthore gagged and coughed as she tried to swallow some of it, though her body was having trouble cooperating. Her tongue moistened. Her crooked teeth became evidently stronger. Her hair was less wispy and dull as the water weighed it down to her shoulders; even the flowers woven in it started to bloom again. The skin of her forehead was unmarked, as if she had never been hurt. Finally, she opened her eyelids, and there were her eyes, fresh and shining. She laid there, shivering. The sheets beneath her did nothing to protect her from the cold of the tray.

Kiandra gazed upon her in near disbelief. She had known it would work only because she could not face the alternative. If she had spent all this time alive, alone, for nothing⎼ It had been so long. It had taken her millennia just to regain enough strength, and to procure the proper knowledge. The world had evolved around her, and she had had to endure it alone. Her thumb stroked Asthore’s cheek. Asthore blinked hard a few times then she sat up and turned to face Kiandra. Reaching out, her fingertips brushed over Kiandra’s lip. 

Kiandra pressed her lips against Asthore’s fervently. She wept as they kissed. Everything was right again, and they could continue on where they left off, in a way. Kiandra wrapped her arms around Asthore and slid her off the table, supporting her weight. Asthore was the one to break the kiss. She pressed her forehead against Kiandra’s. Having woken with new knowledge, she spoke in a language her tongue had never tried before. “I love you.”

2000 years was a long time to wait to hear that again. Kiandra buried her face in Asthore’s neck, and they held each other for a long time. “I love you, too.”