Lida

[michiexile]

Spring

March

Claudia Prohaska was born on the 12th of March, 1981, in the Maternity ward of the Akademisches Krankenhaus in Wien. After a comparatively short stay, Claudia and her parents, Peter and Else, retreat to the family home in Winden am See. She was born a healthy girl, blond tufts of hair, and already deep blue colored eyes evident as soon as she emerged.

Peter worked as clerical management at the UNIDO, and would commute in to Wien along the A4 every day. Else spent most of her time minding the home, and the rest organizing church volunteers, girl guides and any and all other club work in Neusiedl and Winden she could get involved in.

April

Claudia went through school leisurely. First in the Volksschule in Winden, and then once she turned 10, she continued in the Unterstufe and then Oberstufe at the Neusiedl Akademie der Wirtschaft. A quite acceptable, though not remarkable student, she spent her time dreaming about her future, toting unicorn-adorned backpacks, crushing on musicians and later on classmates, and aiming her career, by and by, through the Tourism and Economics programme at the Akademie.

Outside school, Claudia participated in most of the activities that her mother was busy organizing, and a few on her own. She spent a few years in the Scouts and Guides, and many many summers working as ball-picker at the Donnerskirchen Golf Club driving range and as a tourist guide in the Neusiedler national parks. She skiied, did gymnastics, trained Aikido and danced.

May

Puberty came. Claudia shaped up into a quite beautiful young Austrian girl. With her blond braids, bright blue eyes, and the dirndl she'd wear for the tourists, she almost looked like something out of a 3rd Reich propaganda poster. A few years in a row, she took fumbling, and not very well hidden lovers among the boys circulating through the area as the tourists flooded in during the late summer months. Her virginity was lost at an age of 16 to a Sicilian boy, Francisco, two years her senior, in a hay stack in an open air museum overlooking the lake.

Outside the tourist season, Claudia was swept up in Else's increasing engagement in the peace movement. They marched in Wien against the NATO bombs in 1995, and on the Indian and Pakistani embassies in Wien in non-proliferation protests in 1998.

Her 12th year of school, 1999-2000, Claudia went as an exchange student to Handelsgymnasiet in Skellefteå, northern Sweden.

Summer

June

Skellefteå was just the same in many ways, and very different in others. Claudia had great problems adapting to the non-existent nights after her arrival in August, but the close access to nature, and the many avidly skiing friends she made both felt quite like home. She acquired, quickly, a clique of friends she counted as close, and with whom she spent all her weekends and most her evenings.

July

First, two weeks after arriving, the first of these friends - her class mate Maja - invited her along to eat crayfish with her family. Later on, the clique made more and more a point of pulling Claudia into the full width and depth of Swedish traditions and ceremonies.

August

December came.
On the 6th, Claudia organized a Nikolaus-celebration with her clique. Cheap and trite gifts were exchanged, Glühwein was drunk and much joy was had by all.
On the 12th, the clique gathered and gave Claudia a detailed rundown on the exact structure of St. Lucia celebrations in Sweden. They equipped her with a long white dress, a red silk ribbon to work as a belt, and an electric candlelit crown. Lisa's mother worked a kindergarten which was only a little bit of a detour getting to school that Monday morning. So she'd appear wearing her crown, and her gaggle'd be there with candles of their own, and they'd put on a good show for the kids.

She got up in the morning. Dressed in the Lucia dress: thin white cotton dress hugging the ground, a long red ribbon tied around her waist and an electric candle crown on her blond hair - that for this day was let out unbraided. Above this, she took a large, long and heavily padded overcoat. Into her schoolbag was added more, and warmer clothes, to change into afterwards. And so, shivering slightly from her thin clothing, she set out, walking through the heavily snowclad streets of Skellefteå heading for the kindergarten Kolibrin.

The way there went through a small park, and once in the park, the crossroad where she was supposed to walk right didn't actually have a right turn, so she walked the rightmost she could instead.

Her path grew more winding. The forest darker. This being December, the days were pitch black up until the few dreary hours of almost light surrounding noon, but this was even darker than Claudia was used to. And then she turned a corner and almost ran into Him.

Tall.

Blindingly handsome.

Radiating enough light to illuminate the small clearing he was standing in.

"You have come," he remarked, in a voice made of honeyed wine and christmas spices. "To me. And bearing such beauty." At his smile, Claudia's legs all but folded on the spot. Just hearing him adress her made her weak, tingly, excited and completely mindless. And then his eyes dove into hers and he smiled. And at that the rest of the world faded away. She didn't even notice as a copy of herself sashayed out from the shadows, past the pair and back along the path she had come up.

The stranger beckoned, and she followed. He took her by the hand, and she didn't even notice as they walked deeper into the forest and into stranger and stranger areas.

Autumn

September

Out from the dark forest they entered a huge white snowy plain. Walking across this, they reached a walled ice garden, and progressed through it up to a tremendous Cinderella castle all in clear ice, lightly tinted in pastel tones.

She was led on, into the castle, and her coat pulled off her shoulders and dispatched with some servant. She herself was brought into the dining hall. The stranger looked her over very carefully, critically, and then concluded that "No, you won't do as a courtier. I have quite enough of those right now. But you're already well equipped." His hand settled on her shoulder and she felt herself stiffen up. Glancing down, her skin took on a slightly silvery metallic tone, and then she was lifted up on the large table and put to stand in the middle of it. And once she was settled, a door opened, a draft entered, and the first splash of candle wax hit her nose. She winced slightly, but had stiffened enough already that she couldn't really do much other than suffer as more and more wax dribbled down on her, hot and burning.

October

The dining hall was drafty. The candles dribbled and sputtered. And before the dinner she was adorning was done, they burnt out, and snuffed out in small trickles of smoke.

"Relight!" the command rung out from the Host.

Nothing happened.

"Honestly," he complained in an almost whiny voice to the chosen court-girl of the evening, a dark-skinned beauty with downcast eyes. "Even the simplest jobs just won't be done properly nowadays." Then suddenly, his voice flashed from whiny to ice cold wrath, and with a wild gesture he shouted "OUT! GET OUT!"

And instead of the girl-shaped candlestick on the table, surrounded by spluttered wax, there was a very confused and very small hummingbird. Azure coloration, shimmering in the green of polished emeralds. It cocked its head at the furious host, and then darted up in the air and out one window before it could elicit another outburst.

This was the last Lida ever saw of the inside of the castle.

November

A hummingbird in an ice garden is a pretty pathetic existence. Nevertheless, the Host kept quite a number of them. The ice flowers were mostly orchid-like in appearance, with very deep trumpet-like flowers. A few of them would contain a few drops of sugared water, and subsequently the hummingbird population would be flitting in almost panic-like urgency from flower to flower hoping to find one of the sugarer flowers before any of their competitors.

Lida spent most of her waking hours starving and shivering, flying around, hunting the elusive bits and pieces of food scattered around. Nights were spent in the few places one could possibly find heat.

One of the rare places she'd find heat would be with the dark-skinned courtier on whom the Host directed his attentions on Lida's short visit to the Castle. She'd flutter up to her, occasionally, settle down on her finger, and allow herself to be lifted into her fur coat where she'd press herself, cold and shivering against her bosom until she was no longer neither cold nor shivering.

Winter

December

And then, one day, the garden grew cold. The breezes that once swayed the glass orchids turned into a vicious gale, pounding the palace hour after hour after hour. Lida, and all the other little creatures inhabiting the gardens, sought what nooks and crannies they could find to hide from the forceful wind in. As the wind grew vicious, the court grew small, and as the garden grew colder, Lida's one source for warmth disappeared.

Gale turned into storm. Wind brought rain and thundering lightning. And the rain froze on impact, sticking to everything, building edifices of randomness. The frozen rain transformed the slick, streamlined glass plants on their slender stalks into ragged shapes, catching in the wind as if they had grown sails. And as the storm went on, more and more of the garden just snapped, and was propelled against one of the surrounding walls. Orchid after orchid snapped loose and hurled through the air - often carrying a hummingbird who was hiding from the storm in its petals - until it smashed against the palace or the garden walls with a terrifying sound.

Lida, by sheer luck, had sought her protection in a niche in the garden wall. And, again by luck and luck alone, of all the ice hurling through the air, none struck her niche. And thus, when the storm subsided, she could crawl out, and look out on what was once, while unfriendly, her home. Now it was reminiscent of Dresden after the war. Dead hummingbirds lay in piles of ice rubble against the walls, or huddled in statuesque crowds buried under crushed ice.

And then. As Lida and the handful of other surviving hummingbirds looked around the devastation, despairing for nourishment and protection, it seemed as if spring arrived to the gardens. A warm breeze - much like the Alpenföhn back home - swept through the garden, melting the icy piles into cool puddles, and then, little by little, the flowers of the garden regrew out of rime ice. Lida, accompanied by the two-three strongest of her companions, went out to search for nectar in the new flowers.

After the catastrophe, a few days of relative bliss came about. The court wasn't seen in the gardens, but warmth was not as difficult to come by as once it had been, and nectar flowed in the flowers as it once had - but the competition for food was much less fierce, now that half of the hummingbirds had died.

Little by little, the whistles and murmurs of the breeze that swept through the garden took on texture. Tones. Sounds of language - something Lida had started forgetting altogether. Some of it sounded nonsensical, but occasionally, words emerged. Familiar words. Words she had once understood and used herself. At first, Lida barely recognized it as familiar, and forgot the feeling as soon as it had arrived, but as she heard more and more of her mother tongue spoken, she started trying it out for herself.

Life went on. Lida ate. Slept. Flew. And occasionally spoke German to the wind surrounding her. In return, the wind provided warmth, shelter and spoke German back to Lida. And for each word any of them uttered, more memories started surfacing. The wind told Lida about her life, and Lida, in turn, whenever she remembered to, told the wind of her own.

The wind used to be Gitanjali Sanghavi, an indian farm girl who moved to Wien to marry. No longer Gitanjali, the wind wanted to be called Vayu - which meant as much or as little to Lida as Gitanjali would have. Vayu had been stolen away while flying a kite, and had spent her time in the garden as the darkskinned courtier who had warmed Lida. Until blood was shed and Vayu's life, as it was, was stolen from her.

And Lida was Claudia Prohaska, born and raised in Austria. She had been in Sweden, celebrating ... something, when she had gone down a dark forest path, wearing fire in her hair, and was taken to stand on a dining table as a candle. And the candle had burnt out, after which Lida was shaped into a hummingbird, and could not remember much else than flitting from flower to flower in the eternal search for nectar.

Vayu's life had been ghastly. Working from a very young age at her farm. Long days. And then, hardly arrived at puberty, was married off to a man she had never seen in her entire life, and carted off halfway across the world to a city she had never heard of. Kids followed immediately, of course. Lida was horrified - until she forgot all about it moments later.

Lida told Vayu the old folk tales she could remember. The Austrian tales of the gremlins under the mountains, and the Swedish tales of trolls and gnomes. Fair folk stealing mortals and leaving puppets or troll kids in their places. And Vayu told Lida of the devas and asuras of her own mythologies.

Moons came and went as these conversations took place. And then, one day, Vayu constructed a whirlwind of ice and snow to act as an avatar - as she had taken to doing lately - and started talking of home. And of escape. Back to Wien. Lida couldn't believe her ears, and said so. "Can we even talk about this? Here? Won't ... He hear us? And come after us? And how should we get back? And what about all the others here?" Vayu pointed out that while she thought they could make it out now, it would be harder the more came along and the longer they waited.

"If we are to do this, I need insurance. I need safety. I need to know you won't just take me outside the walls and then kill me - by accident or by malice. I need to know you won't sell me back to Him in exchange for your own freedom. I want you to swear to protect and aid me, in an oath that will bind you." The words came out almost without conscious force, as if the circumstances forced them out.

"I agree," Vayu replied. Her avatar took on a more coherent shape, almost like a human woman again as she said, "As your wings shape my currents, so you guide me through life. As your eyes are keen, you see threat and shield me from danger. As your beak is straight and strong, so you are my weapon. We fly the path we choose together. And while we may quarrel, we shall not part. Until we two find ourselves under mortal skies, on mortal ground, in mortal flesh once more, all that I am and all that I have is yours. My skills are your skills, my goals are your goals, my dreams are your dreams, my life is your life, my fate is your fate. This I swear by Sri Ganesha, may He remove all obstacles from our way, and by my true name."

The magic of Arcadia started swirling around the womanshaped column of ice and the small hummingbird, perched on a ice stalk.

"As your currents flow past my wings," Lida started chanting in reply, "so you guide me through life. As a rising wind lifts me from danger, so you are my shield. As your chill pervades all it touches, so you are my weapon. We fly the path we choose together. And while we may quarrel, we shall not part. Until we two find ourselves under mortal skies, on mortal ground, in mortal flesh once more, all that I am and all that I have is yours. My skills are your skills, my goals are your goals, my dreams are your dreams, my life is your life. And my fate is your fate. This I swear by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and by my true name."

As she pronounced her own half of the oath, the magic swirling around them grew stronger, and then settled around them, in them, resolving the building potential. Lida felt strengthened, energized, and filled with a purpose she hadn't felt before.

[[ A vow of Greater Alliance (-3) valid for A year and a day (+3). No boons specified, and no punishments other than those bound by the tying of the oath to fetches, keepers and faith - which otoh are severe enough in their own right. ]]

"Let's go, Lida," Vayu said, staying protectively around her. "Let's go home."

January

The flight was as terrifying as anything Lida had been through so far. They'd fly over the landscape, Lida not doing much else but keeping herself afloat, while coasting along in the currents Vayu provided her with. They'd come hurtling along over jagged cliffs and hard, unfriendly wastelands - and at times, it felt as if only luck kept Lida from smashing into the rocks along the way. The place desolate, food nowhere to hope for, and Lida burning her nourishment fast put her on edge as much as the terror in anticipation of the reactions from Their Keeper.

And then the howl came. Lida, resting in and carried by the shape of Vayu's avatar, distressed by the sound, took to her own wings again, propelled away and away by Vayu's tailwind as the wind focused her own attention on the pursuit. Lightning cracked and hunting horns sounded as Lida fled, away and away, leaving everything and everyone behind her in a maddened dash for something else. Somewhere else. The image of Wien fading in favour of the image of an eternity flying for her life over barren plains of ice and snow. And then, as she almost felt herself lost, Vayu rematerialized around her, embracing the small shape of the hummingbird and sobbing with relief.

"Did you stop them?" Lida asked, reminded of the purpose, and promise of her flight.

"I did." Vayu transformed as they flew. Turned more humanshaped. Lost more and more of her windy essence.

And onwards they ran. As Vayu turned more human, so did Lida. Soon after, they both ran in human shapes, side by side, through forests, melting and warming around them. Lida's wings gave way to featherclad arms, her face filling out, and her entire body enlarging until she was the shape of a small, lithe woman, head covered in azure feathers and a beak protruding from her face.

February

Lida and Vayu emerged together, frost-bitten, shivering and exhausted into the snowy drifts of the triangular clearing in the Untere Prater just north of the Hauptallee. Once a wind and a bird, they have grown more solid, and more humanoid their entire flight, and emerge out into the snowy clearing humans. Naked and freezing humans, nonetheless. Lida's bright blue feathers have been retracting to the top of her head as the influences of Arcadia waned, and now only remains as a wild bunch of bright blue hairs exploding from her scalp.

Together, confused and shivering, Lida and Vayu walk across the clearing, up to a small shed in a corner. Looking through the dirty window on the door, the shed turns out to be full of tools for the gardener - including, to the sheer and utter luck of the two cold women, a number of workman's coveralls are hanging. Lida grabs a rock, smashes the window and reaches inside to unlock the door and they both tumble inside and start dressing themselves in the horribly oversized, thin coveralls.

And then begins the trek. Both have spent time in Wien, Vayu significantly more than Lida, but both are just emerged into the world, cold, hungry and confused. The road through the Prater down to Wien is easily found, passing just on the other side of a thin stretch of trees, and then - as a bus rolls by - by looking tired and scared they are allowed a warm ride down to Hauptbahnhof.

And once arrived to familiar lands, conflicting emotions and needs tear the pair apart. Vayu pulled, almost forcibly to her long lost family; and Lida, with a longing of comparable size, out to Winden, to her own family. Reaffirming their vow with a promise, they part. And Lida launches into a whole sequence of petty theft on her way out. A visit to the Humana second hand shop two blocks from Hauptbahnhof later, she carries a huge warm coat on top of the stolen coverall. After this, she steals two sandwiches from the Bahnhof bakery, and sneaks onto the REX towards Fertöszentmiklos, and - hiding from the conductors on the on-board toilet - makes it to Neusiedl am See undetected.

Curling herself deep into her coat, she trudges through the walkways down to Winden. As she closes in on her old home, her feet take over, and she walks on autopilot. Up the driveway, up to the front door. Her hand shivers and her mind races as she reaches out, and then pushes the door bell.
"Will you answer the door, dear?"
"I'm going, I'm going!"
The door rattles and then opens, and Peter, still wearing his undershirt from the day's work, and grey sweatpants stands outside, mustering Lida. "Yes?"
The sight overpowers Lida, and she breaks down and starts crying in long, powerful sobs, her entire body shaking with each of them.
"Oh, for goodness sake. Come in out of the cold. What on earth is the matter!?" Peter ushers her in, and pulls the door close behind her shutting the cold outside. Lida is led to a chair in the kitchen, and sinks down into it thankfully. As she sits, Else comes sweeping into the kitchen. "Oh my goodness, whatever is the matter!?" She immediately sets the electric kettle to work, then comes over to Lida and Peter, and crouches in front of her.
"Who are you? Where are you from? What are you DOING here?!" - the questions abound, and with each one, Lida just gets more and more distressed and less and less communicable. Finally, the tide of questions, all unanswered, stems somewhat, and Else goes to pour a peppermint tea, and Peter pulls out a loaf of bread.

At that, Claudia comes down the stairs and looks into the kitchen. Upon seeing Lida, her eyes narrow, and then flash. "Oh my GOD, what are you DOING!?" she shouts. "Mom, dad, who is this?! What is she doing in our kitchen!? Why did she .. You STOLE the silver knife off of that table! I saw you!" she splutters.
Both parents turn around. "You WHAT!?" they exclaim in unison.
Else puts down the peppermint tea in front of Lida, and musters her with a hard glare. "Let's see those pockets, dear. Give it all back, now."
Peter walks over to the house phone and dials. "Yes, hi. We have apprehended a thief in our home. Yes. Yes. Waldblick 5, Winden. How soon? Yes, alright."

Now, all family member hold Lida fixed in glares. Following orders, she roots through her coat pockets, and somehow - completely without her notice, indeed a single silver knife is now present in her left pocket. Not that Lida has any recollection of having seen the knife, much less having put it there. She shrinks back, and curls up in a little coat-covered hulking ball on the chair. She is allowed to drink the tea though - "Look at the poor girl, she's shivering!" Else exclaims and hands her the cup.

The ten minutes following feel like an eternity. Lida still cries, and the rest of the family glare angrily. Then two police officers, Hr. Winzler and Fr. Taubeier, arrive and interview, briefly, all family members. "Na, kleine. You're coming with us," Hr. Winzler says, and shoves the still crying little girl out the door.

The car ride into the police station in Neusiedl is swift and silent. Once arrived, Lida gets placed in an interrogation cell, and Fr. Taubeier sits down across the table.
"Name?" "Lida. Lida. Lida is my name. My name. My name is Lida. Not anything else. Nobody else. Me. Just me."
"Lida who?" "Lida. Noone else. You have to have a name. My name is Lida."
"Where are you from?" "Here. Right here. Over there. Winden. I lived there. Then I didn't. Now I don't. Do I? I don't think so. I might not."
"What are you doing here?" "Home. Coming home. Wanting to come home. Tried coming home. Didn't work. Ghastly. " 
"Where is home?" "Here. Winden. Close to the golf course. I could walk in the summers. I could work in the summers. I used to. I don't anymore. It's all gone. Lost it all. Nothing left. Nothing here. All gone."
and the interview continued in a similar non-informative fashion for a while. Finally, as it turned out that Lida, according to her own information, was still not of age, still not able to state a home, or the existence of a family, nor any identifying information that actually could be checked against any records, the Social Services were called.

And Lida, since the family Prohaska, having received their possessions back again, chose not to press charges, was relased from Police custody into the custody of the Neusiedl Sozialdienst.

And at the Sozialdienst, the same questions were asked. Over again. And Lida tried answering. She described the Castle. And the Ice Garden.

And the Sozialdienst called in a psychiatrist. Who declared Lida probably schizoid. Possibly paranoic. And far outside the realms of what Neusiedl could deal with. A few hours wait, and then she got driven to the psychiatric ward of the Wien Akademisches Krankenhaus. She gets deemed a low risk patient, and transferred to a group living community close to Baumgartner Höhe.