Divisions and Precisions

Here's Where the Story Ends

I never thought I'd say it, but it might be time for me to say goodbye to Jake. Jake is a character I play on a MUSH called Emerald Dreams. I've played her longer and more continuously than any role-playing character I've had. Her stories have made me laugh, cry, rage, sit on the edge of my seat... in some ways, she's as real as I am. For almost a year and a half now, she's been a part of my psyche. I've watched her grow from Jake Allen, a college student who was more girl than woman, to Joanna Mornim, a widow with a child on the way and a faerie domain to run. It's hard to explain how I feel to anyone who doesn't role-play, or to someone who role-plays but hasn't had that character yet -- the one who takes over your brain periodically, the one who tickles at the back of your head until you sit down and let them tell their story.

Because of that, I think perhaps the best way to explain why I'm saying goodbye is to let Jake explain it in her own words:

I'm tired. It isn't that there are no more stories ahead of me, I know that there are. Once Aislinn is born, the stories will begin anew. But those stories are changing. Once, every story was a grand adventure full of epic emotions: love, terror, hate, victory, loss, pain, healing... nothing was done in small strokes. I lived life on a larger scale, and I wouldn't change any of it. Every conversation had meaning. Every word, every look... A sense of wonder filled everything about me. In my time in Seattle, marvelous things happened to me, as well as horrible, nightmarish things. But threaded through it all was a sense of the Glamour of living as a changeling.

Then Elathan died. With him went all of the sense of the epic, and much of the wonder. Who else could know me as well as the one who was my soul's companion for millenia? All the struggle and the suffering and the joy, none of it means as much without him near me to share it. Sometimes in my private dreams, he comes back to me. In those dreams, I am no longer Oathbroken, and we are simply... ourselves. Each other's. Together we face the ghosts from our pasts -- Ryan, Laren, Tethier, to name a few -- and all our old sins vanquished and forgotten. I know that time may come someday, if I believe, and if I am patient.

For now, I have Aislinn. Perhaps when she is born, that sense of wonder will return, as I see Elathan and me mingling in her to form something completely new. Perhaps she will create new epics for the two of us to live through.

Or perhaps I will learn to enjoy life on a smaller scale. My days in the sun are behind me. I haven't given up, nor will I. I will learn to choose my battles, and to weigh what really matters to me, and what doesn't. Once I was a lover, a baroness, a fighter, a... a name. Now I want to go on, no longer as those things, but as a mother, a teacher... I want to take my place in the background, leaving center stage for those who still live the epic Dream.

My stories are no longer the ones bards put to song. For all that, they are still my stories, and whether they are of the triumphant blaze of glory or simply the warmth of the hearth, I will live and cherish them.

But for now, it's time to rest.

I know how Jake's story ends, and her dreams are true ones. As long as she believes, Elathan will come back to her. And who knows? After a rest, she may come back as strong as ever, demanding once again to be released from my brain.