priorcommitment | in the east, the gray-green lines

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prince charming

in the east, the gray-green lines

When he sits at the edge of the dock and the tides have risen as much as they do now, the water manages to lap against Ishiah's ankles, the slope of his shoulders uncharacteristically hunched as he stares off into the distance. The bright chirping of birds has faded into the gentle buzz of insects in the distance, hopping from one blade of grass to the next, and Ishiah appreciates the scene just as he does everything else on the island, with an objective eye and an aching heart. It isn't enough to stop him, nor to throw off the tasks which he dutifully fulfills by the day. It isn't enough to drive him mad for the want of home.

But on the rare occasions that it crosses his mind to ask himself whether or not he's happy, the answer doesn't always seem to be so positive of one.

A pair of footsteps sound in the distance, and Ishiah, finding himself curious, glances over his shoulder to spot a young man headed in this direction, to the edge of the dock. He doesn't suspect that the young man is here for him, but instead likely just seeking the very same thing Ishiah is. A momentary period of solace.

He nods in greeting, a thin smile on his lips.

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"Then, let us head in the direction of that pasture," Ishiah decides, a quick glance of the map before he peeks back behind the both of them, eyeing the terrain from afar. He knows the island well, and as such, the shortest path over to the field. But there's something that looks fatigued about the man, or something unsure in his balance; perhaps a longer, more meandering path, the peri thinks, may be the better option. And if anything should better trigger his memory along the way, then all the better.

He glances over, hoping that the man likes the sound of the idea; Ishiah hardly wants to overstep.

"Perhaps we can discuss the woman along the way."

David gives a quiet laugh, as if he's amused by this whole thing. After all, he can't even begin to explain how he feels about Mary Margaret, except that he feels like she's just right and no matter what she says, it's truth. He knows he thinks she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen and there's something about her that makes him think they've met before, somehow. "They said I could help there, and at the animal clinic," he says, repeating it again, like it will sink in better. "It's a good distraction from the clinic."

"I suppose you wouldn't enjoy the clinic much, having been in there so often to date," Ishiah assumes, although he can't say that he's ever had similar experiences himself to draw from. Peri have always been rather fast healers, if not half as quick as angels themselves are, practically invincible save for those who know precisely where to hit them, and where that metaphorical Achilles' heel lies. "But I think it's a good idea to have activities that you can involve yourself with on the island. It gives a greater sense of purpose, and might be able to trigger memories as well. A friend of mine recently suffered from amnesia. He's recovered the memories, not a month later."

"Do you think that's normal?" David asks, clutching onto the hope of it. "I've started to get a few memories back, but they're confusing," he admits, shaking his head. "Maybe that's part of why I've put the map together. The small things that have come to me, they don't make any sense."

Because for every logical memory that involves a town with a small populace and a charming economy, there's a matching memory of an enchanted world of spells and royalty and suffering and joy. He's not sure what to make of the dissonance, really. "Maybe they're not memories at all. Maybe it's just wishful thinking and dreams."

"The mind and memory are tricky things," Ishiah admits. He doesn't want to go too deeply into detail when this young man seems so confused to begin with, but Ishiah remembers how it felt after first becoming peri, no longer having every experience etched and impossible to erase in his mind. Perhaps memories were easier to retain when one's choices never factored into any equation. It was simply like being given a set of levers to turn, always knowing which one was right, or which one suited his role most. Describe a demon, and Ishiah could have told you exactly what he had to do to end that demon's life.

Being a peri didn't come with the luxury of having someone else dictate one's actions. There were plenty of choices which now seemed strange to him in retrospect. He learned. He grew. And he's not the same now as he was back in the beginning.

"They may seem jumbled or disconnected, but remember, you don't have the full picture," Ishiah says. "It's hard to say whether or not they're dreams until you have everything to form that context."

"I'm just tired of wanting it to happen faster," he confesses, the impatience starting to rankle and bring him to a place where he's furiously discontent with the pace of his mind in catching up to his desires. "I want to know who I am. I want to introduce myself as David Nolan and actually believe it. As it is, I just feel like it's another name like John Doe, something that people told me I was, but it's a lie."

He's started to get louder, more worked up. He sighs, shaking his head. "I'm sorry. None of this is your fault. It's just frustrating."

"I know that you're not blaming me; I'd be concerned if you were," Ishiah replies with a raise of his brow. He can't entirely imagine what it'd be like to have one's memories erased, only knowing what it feels like to have a friend stuck in the same predicament. As much as he wants to sympathize, the greater problem is that Ishiah doesn't know where to really begin with the man. Listening to his problems probably won't be enough to trigger the return of memories, not if it hasn't worked so far.

"It may be a slow process," he says instead, turning to take them on the nearest path. "But you shouldn't rush it. You'll get caught in your own emotions. I'm no expert, but I wouldn't be surprised if it caused you to block yourself."

David gives a soft sigh, frustrated but managing to pull himself together. "So, what did you do?" he asks, turning back to the old stand-by of learning about other people instead of focusing on himself. "Before here. I've been told that my situation was somewhat unique." After all, he can't remember anything, but he wants to learn about other people. "What world did you come from before here?"

"I owned a bar in Manhattan," Ishiah explains, easily slipping into the routine of explaining his past life to an island resident; he's been more forthcoming these days about the details of his life than ever before. Part of that, he knows, is because people have been equally as generous with the details on their end, telling him far more in one fell swoop than most patrons at the Ninth Circle did over any number of visits. And if there's anything that Ishiah believes in, possibly more even than the idea of relative privacy, it's the notion of fairness, of giving what one receives in turn. Those intimate details are certainly no small gift.

"A bar where anyone who promised to do no harm to others could drink at will. I would offer them protection. Perhaps more interestingly, I was not human prior to arriving here. I was what is called a peri."

For some reason, the man not being human seems like something that shouldn't be strange. David feels like that's just the normal way of things, as far as he's concerned. At the same time, though, there's a conflicting voice in his head saying the opposite -- that human is the only thing he's ever known. It's been like this since he woke up and he doesn't understand why. "What's a peri?"

There will always be that split-second moment of hesitation before Ishiah comes clean with the true nature of his origin. Not all people share the same outlook on religion. Not all people believe that there is a single, omnipotent God who watches over all of them, and some people, in their refusal to believe, can even become violent upon hearing anyone claim to be proof of God's existence. He's been captured before, tortured, and while Ishiah knows that the people here are all a far cry from those who held him captive, still, he can't help but wonder sometimes.

What happens on the day that he finds an exception?

"A former angel," he says, keeping it brief. "Retired, not fallen."

Sometimes, he wonders whether or not word's gotten out to Caliban, and whether or not the boy even chooses to believe it.

He nods, taking that at face value. He feels like there's some other creature that flies that he ought to know about, but the name is on the tip of his tongue and he can't exactly make it work. "So, in your bar, was it geared towards angels and humans? I mean, were there other things? Dark ones or dwarves?" Every word he speaks is earnest and honest, not an ounce of deception in his tone.

He genuinely believes this because if Ishiah tells him so, he doesn't really have cause to doubt -- that, and it's not like he knows what the world ought to be like.

"It was open towards anyone who wanted a safe place to drink and hold conversation," Ishiah replies with a small tilt of his head. Were the place only available to humans and angels, Ishiah heavily doubts that it'd be a bar at all. Certainly, angels have never stepped foot in the Ninth Circle unless on business; only the peri seem capable of relaxing there. "We had patrons of all species and sorts, but I would say that humans and angels were actually some of the least common visitors. We often had Kin— werewolves, you may better know them by. Dwarves, we had. Dark ones... I'm not sure to who you refer to with that term, but provided they didn't harm others in the bar, they would have been allowed in, certainly."

He doesn't know why, but none of this is frightening or strange to him. There's some tiny voice in the very back of his mind calmly accepting it as the truth and telling him that he ought to believe this. And, you know what? David's not ready to quiet that voice, just yet. "It's crazy, but...I guess that sounds like something I'd like to see," he admits. "That kind of camaraderie and peace, that sort of alliance."

"It's precarious," Ishiah says, by way of being realistic. In the entirety of that wide world, there's only this small stretch of Manhattan, Ishiah knows, which sees any level of truce between the sides. And breaking out that space was one of the bloodiest efforts that he's ever seen to date, the result of a few who persevered and clung, and steeled themselves with the knowledge that they couldn't carve out that haven without losses. He lost more brothers in that effort than any other, and in the end, Manhattan is still as dangerous of a place as any.

But he can readily admit that it is unique.

"I wouldn't call it peace so much as a cease-fire," he adds. "Once they step outside of the boundary of the city, it's no holds barred."

"I don't -- I can't say," he begins, a wariness to his voice that goes along with the fact that nothing in his life is sure, since nothing in his life is really and truly known, "but I feel like where I come from, peace has been the furthest thing from people's minds since we were all born. I feel like, somehow, all I've ever really known is war." But that's not true. Is it? After all, he can remember a life of peace and happiness, a time where he feels utterly content without the threat of a battle.

"Maybe," he sighs, shaking his head. "I have no idea."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Ishiah replies, brow furrowed in consideration. "Of almost all of the creatures that I have known over the years, humans have the greatest tendency to become involved in wars, whether consciously or as a result of the fact that they are so numerous that it's unavoidable that they get caught up in the fray." And what he doesn't say, but feels just as strongly, is that the greed of people often shines through everything else, involving humans in situations where they really have no means to act or affect change.

"Don't push yourself too much," he adds quietly. "The memories may come back in time, but the last thing that we would want is for imagination to take its place under pressure."

"It feels like I'm making it all up." He should feel strange confessing this to someone he doesn't know, but maybe there's a part of him that's so ready to be trusting that he's willing to do this with almost anyone. "I mean, the things in my head," he confides, leaning in because he doesn't want Ishiah to think he's insane. "You wouldn't believe them. I don't think anyone would."

He raises a brow; if there's anything that Ishiah can pride himself on, he thinks, it's the fact that there's very little that surprises him in his age. Whatever part of the world he never experienced on his own, Robin ended up bringing him closer to, the pair of them two halves of a whole, sides to a coin, pulling one another into new places and situations that were practically one another's antitheses.

"Try me," he says, eyes narrowing, less in challenge and more in curiosity. "You might be surprised."

He takes a deep breath, trying to reconcile the thoughts that have been cycling through his mind. "I remember a windmill? I remember a dragon and a farm," he says, shaking his head as confusion overwhelms him. "I remember apples and swords and forests and it all makes sense, and then none of it does. And, like I said, there's a woman."

"Absolutely none of which sounds implausible," Ishiah answers firmly, pressing his lips thin as the both of them walk. "Dragons are, admittedly, next to extinct in my own world, but that's not to say that they don't exist in others. I believe there's a dragon or two on this island, even. The rest all seems quite standard to me. What about it strikes you as being impossible to believe?"

"But, they don't seem to belong with the other memories," is what he admits, whispering that in case someone else happens to eavesdrop and come away with the conclusion that he's lost the little of his mind. "I remember this small town with a clock-tower and a clock with a minute hand that doesn't move," he says. "It's normal. It's calm. It's peaceful. But I know there's also dragons and men who turn to gold..."

"Either it's an elaborately fashioned world of your own imagination, or perhaps one set of these memories isn't quite as real as the other," Ishiah suggests, though he doesn't lower the volume of his voice. Nothing about the juxtaposition sounds strange to him; memories are often tampered with, especially by those with magic, but even as a function of one's regular health at times. "Unfortunately, I'm not the type of person who knows how to coax out the truth so easily with humans, but we have plenty of qualified doctors on the island who may be able to help."

"I've been thinking of visiting the psychiatric office for aid," he admits, still hushing his words. After all, it's a shameful thing to admit aloud, isn't it? He's a grown man, he shouldn't need the help of a doctor to reclaim his memories -- and yet, he's having no success without them. "Do you ever wonder just who you're meant to be? It's all I spent my days doing, now."

Ishiah shakes his head, the only certain answer that he can give out of all the queries that this man has made. "I have never wondered who it is that I'm meant to be. I was not born; I was made. And when one is made, every last detail planned as well as possible, the matter of who we're meant to be becomes infinitely clear. We are made for a purpose," Ishiah considers, brow furrowing.

"The greater question is who I want to be, something that I am still in the process of discovering, and I have little problem taking that road at my own pace. Perhaps that's what you should ask yourself, rather than assuming that you ought force yourself into whoever fate had intended you to be."

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