Shut up, I know what I’m doing. Mostly. I’m good with improvisation.

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Chiera: Spring
Current Date: Unknown

Character: Tiaryn Mortas
Race: Chieran
Age: 30
Current residence: Crisata Manor, Nasir
 

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One of the things that I can’t explain about the manor is the fact that I haven’t had to do any sort of repair over the years. Now, I don’t mind small things like fixing up crooked light fixtures or trying to clear up a clogged drain. Those are things that I’ve learned to do over the years. What I mean, actually, is bigger repairs or upkeep maintenance. This manor keeps itself in shape somehow. I do have to sweep, mop, clean up and out and around and that takes a lot of time but the facade shows no real signs of wear, and the doors and windows are intact.

Have I had to learn to fix dressers, bed frames, and stuff mattresses again? Certainly, and having to do these things the very first time was a challenge. I would have to give myself a pep talk about it. I had to tell myself that I knew what I was doing, even though I was more than aware that I didn’t know. I told myself that I could improvise a solution and that it would be perfect and while it certainly wasn’t, not at first, with passing years, I’ve learned the trade, so to speak.

And once I realized that Jassan was clearly staying for what seemed to be a bit of a longer term than most other residents, I taught him what I knew. I didn’t want him to go through the uncertainty I had. There’s no saying that he’ll stay forever. All we can do is take things as they happen, but I cherish every moment he spends here with me.

This one uncertainty about Crisata is what gets to me in the long run, I think. This inability to know for a fact that I might wake up tomorrow and he’ll be gone. Though no one’s ever stayed for more than a few months at the very most and, like me, he’s been here for years now, so I try not to think about what might-bes.

I don’t need to fret about having to figure myself out all over again because I know that if he ever goes back home, I’ll have to learn to do everything on my own again. I’ll have to adapt to waking up alone, I’ll have to do the rounds on my own.

Stars, I remember how, when I first realized that I was getting attached to him, I would tell myself that I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let myself get attached to him in that way because he was going to disappear like everyone else and I didn’t want the heartbreak but here I am now. Clearly, I suck at improvisation if it concerns my heart. He’s the first one who ever stayed this long and the first one who ever wormed his way this deep under my skin. I don’t want him to go, and I know that I won’t know what to do with myself if he left.

So yeah, one day, then the next. I can’t plan too far ahead of us, and we both agreed to that a long time ago. We both feel that it’s been long enough that he’ll stay but let’s not jinx it. Instead, we wake up in the morning, we make our plans for the day and then we get through that. There are times when we lounge in our bed together but those aren’t everyday things, even though I wish they could be.

In a way, I’m the caretaker of this place. I’ve had to learn to do things. I know that a lot of people would probably manage just fine on their own here without my input but when we get younger kids, I just can’t think to let myself ignore them. They’re usually just so terrified that they need a soothing, gentle presence at their sides and if not that presence, they tend to need help in the kitchen.

All in all, my whole life here has been about telling myself that I knew how to do things until I’d mastered them, even letting Jass steal my heart was something I sort of learned about as it happened, and I have no real regrets. There have been a few times over the years when there have been regrets but they are things that have more to do with the manor and what roams the flowers outside than anything else. Jass has brought me nothing but smiles as we’ve grown together, and I don’t want to change that.

So, let’s just keep on making things work as they happen and go from there.

Final Word Count: 774

You’re asking me to give you a hand in something dangerous with a pathetic bribe such as that? Try again.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Chiera: Spring
Characters: Tiaryn Mortas
Race: Chieran
Age: 27
Current residence: Crisata Manor, Nasir
Final Word Count: 741 words
 

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People come and people go. That will forever be the story of this place. So long as people will feel endangered by those who are near them, the manor will have a reason for being.

I don’t claim to understand what makes the manor what it is. Can’t claim to know exactly how it came to be. I just know what I know because I’ve lived my whole life here and I don’t think there’s much of anything else to say about it.

I do know that you can’t roam the waist-high flowers that cover a good chunk of the grounds except for a particular path that leads to an open garden and a little lake. The flowers do cover the grounds out and about beyond that, though. I do know that we’ll wake up in the morning and we might have someone new in the place or, quite the opposite, we might find that one bedroom that was in use is now empty. Those are always bittersweet moments.

We don’t usually need to warn the newcomers about the flowers. They’ve all heard the stories. It seems to be fairly common knowledge out and about that the flowers of Crisata manor are dangerous. Though that part is a lie. It’s not the flowers that are dangerous; it’s what roams through them. I also only know about how common the knowledge seems to be through our visitors since I’ve never been outside this place, not exactly.

We had a rare occurrence not so long ago. A set of two popped up in a bedroom one afternoon. It’s not so much the ‘one afternoon’ that is the rare occurrence though that is uncommon too, but it’s the part where there were two of them. That’s not to say we haven’t had twins before, I think I’ve seen four or five sets in all of my years and even that feels like too many. We even had one set of three and that just broke my heart.

These two, though, they weren’t related and, through asking them a few basic questions, we were able to find out that they hadn’t even lived in the same house. They’d promised to always be together one way or another through some sort of pact and as one was on the receiving end of violence, I guess that the other was protecting them and somehow the manor saw fit to drawing both of them in, I just don’t know.

I should have known better, though.

Not even a day in, one of them was roaming real close to the flowers, as though testing the limits. She looked restless as though she wanted to go home. This one looked healthier than her friend. Her friend mostly kept to the shadows and to the quiet spots and corners, she kept well away from the flowers.

I did hear them arguing in hushed tones the day just before they disappeared. Mind you, they didn’t disappear in the general way that means they went back home, no. I saw them ‘braving’ the flowers. I can’t even rightfully call it braving when their actions were just flat out stupid. They knew the danger.

The quiet one was arguing about how there was no way she was going to help her friend with something as dangerous as roaming out into the flowers to break free of the manor. No amount of bribe, not even one as pathetic as what she’d been offered, would make her change her mind.

Now, I don’t know what that bribe might have been.

I don’t know what did make her change her mind.

What I do know is that you’ll never catch me within anything less than at least a foot of the flowers.

I heard them scream and they were gone before I could even get to the right side of the yard. All I could see was the rustling of the flowers some yards away and that wasn’t due to the wind. The breeze was so soft it barely brushed through my hair. I didn’t go in there to look for them. They knew what awaited them out there—at least, they had a fair idea that whatever was out there was dangerous but still, the brave one of the two wanted to escape the manor. If it were just up to me, I’d be more up to saying that she was an idiot. She wasn’t brave.

Hopeful? No one’s ever called me that before.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Chiera: Spring
Characters: Tiaryn Mortas
Race: Chieran
Age: 26
Final Word Count: 700 words
 

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I don’t think you can ever really get used to the people who come and go. I’ve lived here all of my life and I’m always a little startled when I realize a room is in use one morning when it wasn’t the night before, or I admit that I get a little sad but relieved when a room that was used one evening, no longer is the following morning. It means that for the person that had been staying there, the trouble in their lives has passed and they’re free to return to the safety of their home.

Some are skittish when they come in, others just seem to be relieved as could be; some, and I can’t blame them, are absolutely terrified when they realize where they are. Crisata Manor is a terrifying place if you only know of it through the rumours. Yes, there are waist-deep flowers nearly all around the manor that are dangerous as could be, mostly because of what wanders through these flowers.

One recent addition to our family—it always makes Jas smile when I call the people here that, though plenty are very much keep to themselves is a boy whose name remains a mystery. He looks to be perhaps twelve or thirteen and he doesn’t trust either one of us to know his name. He seems to believe that by knowing his name, he gives us power over him. I don’t know who filled his head with these things but I’m also not here to argue with him so we let him settle in at his pace. No one knows how long anyone is ever going to stay here.

A few days ago, I was looking over one of the drawings he’d made and I told him that it was a very good drawing. He gave me this look as though I was an idiot and I couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped me. He huffed and turned to ignore me but I pointed to different parts of his drawing and told him what I thought they meant. One particular flower that really stood out in his drawing was one of the pale blue ones that we tend to have in planters on the balconies and around inside and I told him it meant hope.

I told him that by drawing these flowers, it meant that he was hopeful. It could have been hopeful for just about anything but most who are here usually are hopeful for a quick return to the safety of the lives that were theirs before and it seemed just about to be similar to him. He looked at me for what felt like the longest of times before he gave a subtle little nod. He mumbled something about never having been called hopeful before. He’d been called a lot of things but not that.

Feeling like I might have managed something there with him, I didn’t push any further. I told him that there were plenty of other things for him to do if he ever got bored and that mine and Jassan’s room was on the far edge of the first floor. It’s a slightly secluded area but we’ve made it our own. We’ve been here so long that I felt as though we deserved something to truly call ours and not just the rooms we’d been assigned by the manor itself.

With that said, I left him to his drawing, feeling a little lighter. It’s not always easy, when you’re trying to make sure that everyone in the manor is seen to, in some way. Some will just give you the finger so it’s best to leave them to themselves but for the most part, most that have come our way were willing to open up at least a little, or, if nothing else, they were willing to at least try to settle in some while they were here. They understood why they were here and that it really was for their own good. The manor, in all of my years, has never wrongly pulled someone into its space.

I still don’t fully understand how it works but I’m fine with that.

I didn’t expect to see you here.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Chiera: Spring
Characters: Tiaryn Mortas
Race: Chieran
Age: 25
Final Word Count: 579 words
 

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Not all of our visitors at Crisata want to be here. Some would rather be dead, some would rather be back in the arms of the ones that were doing them harm because they’re terrified of what Crisata is about without knowing anything of the truth.

Sure, once you’re here, you can’t leave, not really. Not until the essence of Crisata senses that you’re safe to go back to the place where you came from. I mean, just look at me and Jassan. I’ve been here for more than two decades and somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever go home. I don’t really want to either and I don’t know if that has a sway on things or not. We’ve had people who came and connected with other visitors and yet, they still got whisked away when Crisata felt it was time.

Jassan has been here for quite a while too, he’s the longest visitor, besides me, that has ever been. Usually, people stay a few days, a few weeks, maybe a few months but that’s about it. No one ever stays for more than a few months before they’re gone again.

On the same note, we rarely get to see the same people twice. You would be surprised at how many people are in the manor at any given time. Sure, there are days when it’s really quiet and you wonder if there really isn’t anyone and there are other days when a lot of the rooms are in use and you wonder about that too.

Sure, only Lismonian people can step onto Crisata’s grounds but now and again, you forget about how big our world is and that we have more than one continent, more than one town, city or island.

So when Jas told me that Saya was back, I was confused. We’d only seen her just a week or two back, she came one morning and not even forty-eight hours later, she was gone. I mean, it’s not all that unexpected that this place is something of a ‘pit stop’ for a lot of people. Crisata doesn’t really judge. If it feels that you desperately need to be away from the violence in your life, then it pulls you away until that wave of violence passes. So we thought that her tormentor had mostly just disappeared altogether but there she was, back again.

We didn’t ask her about it. She hadn’t been very talkative the first time around and she looked to be pissed off at being back here. Oh, did I forget to mention that her room had been completely trashed? Yeah, she’d taken apart as much as she could in that room on her first visit. She’d torn bed sheets to shreds, she’d destroyed pillows, she’d broken small trinkets and she’d even broken the windows in her room.

We mostly left her alone that first time and we’ll be leaving her alone this time too. I have no desire to have to face off with her when this place is meant to be a safe haven. I know that Jassan would have tried talking to her if she’d come years ago but he’s learned otherwise too. The first time someone lashed out at him, I had my work cut out for me as far as getting him to open up again was concerned. So now, we leave the angry ones to themselves. If they want to interact, they can seek us out.

They wouldn’t be secrets if I went around blabbing about them.

Timeline/World: Chiera: Spring
Characters: Tiaryn Mortas
Race: Chieran
Age: 24
Final Word Count: 522 words

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Some of the residents are complete jerks. I get that it’s a defence mechanism. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t escaping from some harm or other but I have done nothing but be kind and patient with each and every one of them, even Jas has been patient as could be to try and pull them out of their shell but they refuse to leave their room.

I won’t force them, that’s not the point of Crisata but I still wish they would open up a little. Edeline, for one. She’s been here for six months now, the oldest with us right now. We’ve had a recent ‘clear out’ as is, I’ve never seen it happen before but it did. The whole manor, all fifteen or so inhabitants that had been in, they all went home short of two of us and I would have been crushed if Jas had gone. He’s been at my side for a few years at this point and my life is meaningless without him. I have lived all of my life in this manor, for as long as I can remember. At times I think my mother might have been the one swept away to the manor and I was born here. I can’t remember.

All of this to state that there was a huge number of guests going back on their way almost eight months ago, over the course of about a week. I don’t know why. Is there something going on out there? A war of sorts, sickness? Something that is killing those who made the lives of our once guest miserable, giving them a chance at a new life, back home? I will never know. We will never know. We spent two months, give or take, on our own before Edeline showed up. She was viciously aggressive at first, she still is, almost like a wild child, raised by animals but she’s calmed down just a little, barely.

Others came and went after that, we have maybe eight in the manor currently. I try to bring them all out of their shell as I can but it is pretty difficult. Some open up more easily than others and some just fall under the absolute charm that is Jassan. He’s blossomed into something absolutely wonderful.

Edeline though, she almost tried to bite his hand off about a week ago. He was just trying to approach her, talk to her. She lunged at him but he scrambled out of the way. She hissed something about secrets; it was hard to make out. We’ve left her alone since. It’s not the first time we’ve had an almost feral visitor to the manor but none have been quite as difficult as she is. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do about it, other than just let her be at that point. She’ll either come out of that state on her own or remain as such until she either goes or who knows what else.

If she stays, she stays though I’d rather she go. It’s not my decision who comes and goes from our fabled manor.