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Blog Post 51: The Adventure Shop: Part 18

10/13/2023

Dahlia got up from stretching, feeling discouraged with how her muscles already ached from the little bit of movement she had done. Brawn, her instructor for this lesson, seemed to be full of excited energy for all the work ahead of them. Looking at him, she wished that she had even half the energy that Brawn had. Every morning waking up her muscles ached, and her vigor was non-existent. Dahlia doubted she would ever get back anything the woman in yellow stole from her. As much as she tried to stay positive, to believe, and hope, she felt her will waning. 

“Your thoughts are showing on your face again,” Bart noted as he came up, tapping each side of her face with a long branch. He held it like a sword as he pointed at her as he asked, “As much as I can see it, what are you thinking? Say it out loud.”

Brawn looked at her and seemed to take notice that she had a grimace where her somewhat normal smile usually set. “Oh,” he remarked, taking in her features as he and Bart waited for her response. 

Dahlia shook her head. “I don’t want to say it aloud. I have complained enough.” She sighed as a final thought came out her mouth. “I am tired. And I know we just started this, but– I don’t know.” She ended her sentence, not sure what to say. Not sure how to express the weariness in her soul. 

“I don’t think it is complaining. Not with what I think it is. All of us here have had a change of plans in our lives that was unexpected and hard to cope with. One thing we all did before we could move forward was to let go. Let go of who we were and grieve that person. Did you allow yourself to grieve?” Bart looked at her.

“I don’t have time to grieve or to even feel sorry for myself. There are people fighting for me, people who are working to restore my life. And I am here, unable to even stretch without my muscles aching. I am so weak now.”

“And what were you like before?” Brawn looked at me,  and I felt it might be a ploy. But a part of me wanted to prove I was not as pathetic as I now was.

“I used to create new things for adventurers to use. New clothes, fabrics, little things to protect the adventurers. I used to make weapons, and explore new ways to heal and to make new potions or elixirs to help. I used to help out my town. Everyone needed my help and I could do something. I had my magic to make things, to go places whenever I wanted. And now… Now I am useless. I have nothing left. And even now, as I am trying to get better, I know I will be nothing like I was before.” Dahlia felt her eyes slightly water as she grew frustrated at how weak she had become.

“It is okay, Dahlia,” Bart said. “It is okay to grieve the person you were. You may get back there one day or you may never. But you cannot compare who you were then. That you did not experience what you have now. And it won’t help comparing. Let yourself grieve the loss, but once you grieve, let her go. Let the past version of you be nothing more than the past. It is the only way you can go forward.”

Bart looked at her as Dahlia looked away, not wanting to hear any of it. 

“You can’t stay in a place of grieving though. You have to take small steps forward. One step and then give yourself the space to rest. My guess is that you are not very good at resting.”

“What gave it away? My constant need to create, or that I don’t sit still well?” Dahlia replied sarcastically, trying to keep from feeling what she did not want to feel.

“Clearly, we have some work cut out for us,” Brawn noted as he brought out his notepad, taking notes. 

“Do you want to move forward?” Bart asked, as Dahlia tried to start working on the routine Brawn set up for today. 

“I do, but…”

“Then that is what we focus on, if what we are doing now is too much, we will take it a little each day,” Brawn noted as he watched her and corrected her form. 

Dahlia felt winded and frustrated. “I don’t want to grieve her. I don’t want to lose who I was. She was strong and capable. And now I am complaining again.” Bart watched her as she fought the battle within, the only way to really give her any chance at having closure one day.

“I had to grieve who I was. Before I came here, I was the captain of a crew that respected and loved me. We did what you would expect. Working for hire when we wanted. I made a bad choice. I lost it. My ship, my crew, my title. And almost my life. One of my crew members brought me here before they left me. I am still working on finding my new path, but before I could do even that, I had to let go of my past. I had to let my past remain in the past and figure out where I could go now. What I had left.” He sighed. “You have lost a lot, but you still have your life. You still have potential. It may be hard to get there. It may be hard to go forward, but you are still alive. And you have people fighting to help you now. It is okay to need help. To grieve who you are and accept the people around you trying to help you take those steps.”

Dahlia sighed. “Can we be done for today? I need some time to think.”

“Take all the time you need, but know this wasn’t for free. I expect to know how you make one of your healing elixirs,” Bart noted as he began to walk off. 

“It is alright. We will keep working on it. And I will make adjustments for future training. We will take it a step at a time,” Brawn said as he put away his notepad and looked at Dahlia for confirmation.

“That sounds good.” She tried to smile and felt an awkward smile plaster to her face.

Brawn tried to keep from laughing as he walked off, leaving Dahlia alone with her thoughts. Walking with nowhere in particular to go, she found herself at the river. Dahlia sat down and placed her feet in the water. She sat still as the sound of the water consoled her. The feeling of the wind offering a comforting touch. She began to seek the thoughts she tried to put away. To bury under the list of goals she desired to accomplish. 

Her thoughts slowly brought forth all the emotions she tried to keep at bay. The denial she had stayed within. As she looked at the water, she saw the girl who was from her past. She looked up at her curiously.

“What happened?” the girl in the water asked her with concern.

“I wasn’t able to protect us. And now I don’t know what I have left to give. It takes so much energy to even get up in the morning. I don’t know how to get you back. How to even get back what I lost from the Woman in Yellow. I don’t know where she is or who she is. I don’t know what to do now.” Dahlia felt the tears well up in her eyes as she admitted what she did not want to.

“It is okay. You have been through a lot. You are healing and that takes time,” the reflection acknowledged.

“I am so sorry I wasn’t able to protect you,” Dahlia cried. The water continued to rush through, and the wind cooled the hot tears on her cheeks. The sound of the forest was met only by her sobs. The person who she was, was gone. Only the reflection, an echo of that being remained. 

“It is okay. You did not know. You have fought so hard to get here. To get to this place of healing. You don’t have to keep trying to be me anymore,” the reflection spoke as it rested in my heart. Affirming what she needed to hear. In that moment, she grieved the girl, the part of herself she had lost. The health that was no longer hers to claim. Abilities that she had no access to because her magic was stolen. 

“You need to let me go, Dahlia. You need to see what you can do now. There are things you still have to offer. Abilities still inside of you that you can use. Let go of me, and find out who you are now,” the reflection instructed as Dahlia continued to cry.

“I don’t know if I can,” she admitted.

“You have so much to look forward to, Dahlia. Let me go,” the reflection beckoned. 

Dahlia reviewed her memories. Moments she gave new adventurers tools she made. The moments, late in the night, a spark of inspiration drove a new project. The people she took care of in the town that inspired her to try new potions. The woman she was would no longer be, but there were parts that she still carried now. 

Dahlia breathed in and knew it may be a decision everyday to let go of her past and to try to move forward, but that was the only direction she could go now. 

“I am letting you go. I may have to let you go every day, even every moment. But I can’t keep you and keep moving forward. I can’t keep hoping to have returned what I have lost. Now, all I can do is to work on what I have now and see what is left.”

“You have so much potential. Keep taking one step at a time,” the reflection said before it slowly shifted and began to float down stream. 

She looked up into the limbs of the Mother Tree. The leaves shifted in the wind as she stayed still and silent. 

An emptiness settled in her. 

In letting go of who she was, there was so much to now figure out. Dahlia felt a nudge in her back. She looked behind her to see ten different limbs of the Mother Tree with various objects in each one. 

“What is this?” Dahlia asked as she took a bottle from one of the limbs. Another nudge and Dahlia smiled, curious at what the Mother Tree held for her. She took each one and examined their contents. One jar was empty. As if waiting for something new.  

Pulling each ingredient and bottle to her, she recognized the contents and began playing around with a recipe she remembered. A little of the powder from an aspen bark, eye of newt (or its other known name of mustard seed), steeped Echinacea tea, and crushed lavender. It was not a powerful combination as far as elixirs or potions, but would assist in healing any open wounds. Cleaning, reducing inflammation, and assisting with pain. It was a simple combination and could also assist in dermatitis, at least she thought it would with the known effects. 

She mixed in a bowl that the Mother Tree gave her and placed the new salve into the jar. 

“Can I know what that is?” Bart asked, leaning over her shoulder, inspecting the jar. The Mother Tree whipped one of her branches, smacking Bart in the back of the head. As if to say ‘She just started feeling better. She doesn’t have to tell you anything.’

Bart rubbed the back of his head as he looked at her and the jar, and then watched the Mother Tree very carefully. Just in case she decided to reprimand him again.

“It is a salve to help with open cuts and some effects on skin issues, but I have not tested all the ways it helps. It helps support healing and with pain”, she explained as she put away the other supplies and gave them to the Mother Tree’s waiting branches. 

“So you do have some pretty cool abilities,” Bart hinted and smiled down at Dahlia as she looked up with a feigned annoyed expression.

“I guess I might. But I still have so much–”

He cut her off as he helped her up. “Just take it day by day. One step. All you need is one step forward. Today, you worked on letting go of your past. Tomorrow, all you need to do is take one more step forward,” he told her as she thought about what he said. 

Behind them they heard a slight cough. She turned and saw Brawn behind her. 

He scratched the back of his neck with his notebook in the other hand. “I wanted to say sorry. I got really excited about helping someone get stronger, and I didnt think about what you would need to grow at your pace. After hearing more about what happened from Marianna, I, uh, got to thinking. Your body has gone through a lot, and we need to help you get stronger again, but there are other ways to do it that will not be as hard on your body’s recovery. I still want to help, if you will let me.” His response was sweet and seemed bashful compared to the confidence he had earlier.

“Thank you for apologizing, you don’t have to, but I appreciate it. I am really grateful for your help and should have explained that I was struggling,” Dahlia noted her fault in her frustration. 

“Now that we have the picturesque ending, shall we say the lesson you learned was to ask for help? A continued theme I would assume, and that you learned to let go so you could move forward?” Bart asked as the other two looked at him confused.

“This isn’t just some story that is going to end now that I found some resolution.” Dahlia rolled her eyes. 

“Well, it would be a perfect time to end if it was,” Bart said, scratching his chin, waiting for the perfect follow-up line for the scene to end. As a lover of stories, he always noted when perfect scenes seemed to occur in their lives. Like this one now. 

“Well, let’s just say that this is the moment until next time!” He waved at the air as if waving to the readers reading this. 

Dahlia whispered to Brawn, “Does he do this often?” With a raised eyebrow she wondered what Bart would be able to teach her other than his sense of insanity.

“He can be like that occasionally. We just let him do his thing. He thinks in storylines,” Brawn explained. 

The Mother Tree reached for the jar Dahlia held with the salve she had made. Letting it go, Dahlia wondered if the Mother Tree was planning on using it for one of her cases. Bart tapped her cheek with the branch he still had, “You are thinking about what the Mother Tree is doing; why don’t we show you?” he asked as he began walking. 

Dahlia’s curiosity brought her to follow them as she felt a nudge on her arm. Looking down, she saw the Mother Tree held more ingredients for her. She could start with this. Dahlia knew how to create things, and it may not be the same as it was before, but with her past no longer holding her back, it left her future open with possibilities. 

“That is what I call a wrap up,” Bart noted. Dahlia shook her head. If anything, it constantly provided new people she would have never met staying where she was. Her thoughts slowly trailed to Aster and wondering how he was, how they all were. If they found any leads. She trusted him and knew even if she caught up, she wouldn’t be helpful. For now she would do what he left her here to do. Heal and rest. 

She hoped for a letter soon that would give any information on what had been happening with him. In perfect timing, a bird rested on her shoulder with a letter in tow. Removing it, she saw the handwriting. “It’s from Aster,” she said.

“Well, that’s all for now folks. Tune in next time for Aster’s letter!” 

“Bart, who are you talking to?” Dahlia rolled her eyes as she read about her friends updates on the trail of the Woman in Yellow.