Suzuha's Magical Picture Book

[Suzuha]

This thread is open to those who'd like to take part but please abide by my one rule: don't change the setting or location. I can turn the pages of this book to bring this -- my home -- to new places and themes but I'm reserving that power for me. Thanks in advance!

Her book is actually a tome of substantial size and weight that carries about it a scent of incredible old age that denies its near pristine condition. The cover, at first glance, seems to be leather but closer inspection reveals that it is more akin to wood -- living wood, at that -- and feels very slightly warm to the touch. Engraved in its surface are trees and flowers, birds and beasts, and peaking in at upper and lower edges are angels and demons respectively. The scene is carved with exceptional care, edges and lines sharp and rounded both, as fits their form and need. It's only then, as concentration deepens, that one realises that the components are moving, very slowly, but nonetheless in constant motion. Trees are swaying, creatures appearing and disappearing in the bas-relief undergrowth, and the eyes of angels and demons keep watch on the one who watches them.

The book has no buckle or lock that would otherwise have seemed somehow fitting for a creation so strange. It also has no title, the spine and cover melding into the slow motion diorama played but never presenting letters or symbols of any recognisable kind. It is simply Suzuha's book and always has been.

Within is her everything. Every dream she's had, and there have been more than a few. Every place she's visited, and a great many more that could only exist in her mind's eye. Every fantasy she's dare to share, and all the rest she has locked away for fear they would turn wicked on her and the world at large. Everything she is, was, and is yet to be. Even things that she does not know are there await her in the book's magical pages.

One might think it was a contraption that would require some great power to use, or a secret knowledge, or even something as simple as the correct words or signs. It's much simpler than that, though. To open the book, to turn its pages, one has to be Suzuha. It's her book, her life, a view onto her soul, and it only answers to her bidding.

When it is closed, the book rests upon a simple teak pedestal with a heavy base. The pedestal is on a sheer stone floor in the middle of a single, vertical shaft of pure white light. All around it is absolute darkness, emptiness more hollow than the vacuum of deep space, literally nothing at all. In this place, the book is creation itself.

 

[Suzuha]

... reserved ...

 

[Suzuha]

... also reserved ...

 

[Suzuha]

She steps into the shaft of light and she is home. And she is frustrated, irritated. Nothing has gone quite right today. Even the things that were ostensibly successful took too long and frustrated her more as a result. And then the things that were meant to be fun were just angering. She just wants the day gone.

She reaches for the book and pulls it open. After a fashion, she doesn't choose a page, perhaps even can't choose a page, but she gets the page she needs.

Wind tears from the book, the sky crackling with the threat lightning overhead but not a drop of rain. A mountain top, sharp rocks, sheer cliffs, just a single scrubby tree with nary a leaf to its name. Beneath the tree, a low wooden stool that she finds herself sat in. Blustery gales whip through her hair, tug at the fibres of her clothes, bite at her skin. Light is all from a moon of improbable size and luminance hanging low below the bank of stormy clouds that circle her mountain.

Not a soul lives on the mountain, nor could they easily reach this tiny patch of flatness atop deadly precipices. Here she can be angry all she likes. The wind tears it all away.

 

[Suzuha]

It takes a time, but the wind does its business. Cold, hungry, she decides to be somewhere else. She turns the page...

... and she manages a small, nostalgic smile at where her book has brought her to.

Thick russet carpet and warm sunshine walls, the room is small but still finds space for a lush double bed filled with cushions and pillows and the cuddliest duvet a person could wish for. The curtains, with their jagged patterns meant to inspire images of American Indians, are closed to keep out a cool spring night, but a giant mug of hot chocolate awaits her on the bedside table next to the silvery glow of a globe lamp. On the wall opposite the bed is a huge watercolour print invoking images of ancient Japan, all formal gardens and majestic castles amidst misty mountains. Beneath the print, all gaggled together are her array of soft toys keeping watch from the heights of the chest of drawers.

It's not the largest room, nor the best appointed, but it is by far her favourite. Times here were innocent, more relaxed, somehow free of the cares and complexities that arrived in later years. She pushes the recent aside and finds comfort in this place that once was, climbing into bed and pulling the covers up to her chin while she waits for the chocolate to cool.