Title: Pricks & Thumbs-03
Fandom: Fear Mythos
Characters: Rich Providence, Miss Nancy
Rating: G- (L1 N0 S0 V0 D0)
Warnings: Nearly opaque reference to fetish porn that doesn't make sense unless you've read part 1.
Notes: Our protagonist investigates the records in the town hall, and discovers some journals, from the early days of the town.
I haven't been able to get out of town, yet. We're shooting something with Syl and Janet, tonight, which means I don't have to pay too much attention, just enough to make sure the little things get cleaned up. Those two won't do scenes for Unmarked fetishists, and yeah, they don't get paid as much, but the fans are devoted in a whole other way.
I managed to get to Town Hall, this morning, to get a look at some of the early records. Miss Nancy says if I ever decide to change my mark, I should come see her. I laughed and said I didn't think I'd look that good in black. There's stuff in there I remember from when I was a kid, but it goes back further than I remember, and there's more details.
I guess when the world changed, everything went away. I mean, yeah, I heard, but… People's memories are weird. I just never really believed it, but there's journals and stuff talking about how stuff used to be. I guess there was a town near here, but not where we are, now. There's sketches of it. That's what the library's from, I guess. There's some stuff about when the Patternhanded first came, and how they started building, non-stop, like they knew where all the parts were and exactly where to put them. I guess once people figured out what they were doing, they started hauling stuff in from what was left of other towns, and piling it in what's now the town square. And there's a few mentions of other … people? Like the Patternhanded, but flat. This journal says they moved like ghosts and shadows. I guess they're talking about Those Who Walk Before The Pattern. I don't remember ever seeing them, but I was really young, and Those Who Walk Before stopped coming around so much, years ago.
There were still Librarians in the town, back then, and they used to bring books and diagrams so the Patternhanded could learn new patterns. I know not every Patternhanded knows every pattern. They're people, like the rest of us. But, they see things so differently, I just never thought of them learning patterns. I figured they just knew some. I asked Miss Nancy, and she told me they all start knowing some, but it's not that hard to learn more. The whole time we talked, she never stopped correcting the stacks, nudging the furniture, and cleaning out the tiny little screws that held together the cabinets until they reflected the light just how she wanted to see it. She told me she built the Town Hall, so she knew just how it was supposed to be. Her and Jerry Moran, she said, but I guess he's dead, now. Heard he tried to build an auditorium around some dancing Dolls, and they trampled him. It's now the playhouse on Jackson, and there's a little plaque out front with his name on it.
I also read that there wasn't always a forest, here. After the change, it was all just red clay for miles in every direction. Red clay, and some broken down building-parts. It's pretty much still like that, if you get too far out of town, but most of the good stuff has already been dug up. One of the journals said that trees used to be green, but they've always been red, here. I can't really imagine what green leaves on a tree would be like. It's just weird.
Anyway, I guess the Dryads came, because there was a town starting, and they needed somewhere to go. They made a deal with the Seraphim, and the Seraphim called the rain, and the Dryads raised the trees. Dryads are really pretty awesome, and there would not be nearly as many colours in town, without them. They brought us all kinds of things to eat and flowers and all this cool shit that would just not have been possible without them, in all that red clay. I never thought about it, before. You know? It's like… you grow up and things are a certain way, and you just… never think about it.
So, yeah, I guess I really like Dryads, now, even if they are a little creepy to look at.
