Here archives the stories of Axom, its people, and the world it so strongly cherishes. Stories of love, loss, hope, beauty, darkness, light, freedom, and the perfect lack of perfection.
OOC note: These are not publicly known or shared with anyone outside of 715-14, but do help provide context for the real world of Axom and allow me to use this cool world to write more long-form stories about some cool characters
Occurs directly following the opening Smoky Stallion interview
The door closes. Finally, the camera crew has gone. Len Ferguson closes his eyes and lets his cheery facade fall. It’s funny how they all think it’s fake. Even funnier how they don’t know how real it is. He smiles, but it’s smaller now, more introspective. He snaps his fingers and the lights flicker off, the room cascading into darkness only lit by a sort of dim glow, like a dingy bar at midnight. It’s the most beautiful sight in the world.
The low light illuminates his body as he walks towards the door. He doesn’t walk as a normal human might, nor does he move at a steady or consistent pace. He simply walks however he wants. It’s his nation, his people, his directors meeting he heads to. It is a sense of true freedom, especially after the suffocating nature of a public appearance.
The room is bathed in light again as he walks into his boardroom, where a group of people sit in abject silence, only broken by the occasional sip of a glass.
“Good evening my friends. Our first public appearance is a success. In the eyes of this world’s unjustly uneducated peoples, we are now a sovereign nation.” says Len, with a good-natured smile
The room stays silent, but a few people nod their heads in a sign of general agreeableness. At the other head of the table, a woman stands. She’s dressed oddly by most nation’s standards, although not particularly oddly by the standards of the people sat all around her. She wears a tunic stained with what seems to be thousands of individual colors of paint, mud, and dye. Her hair is coiled in weaving strands atop her head, wrapped with the dead leaves of several varieties of tree. When she speaks, her voice is low, gravelly, and broken in parts, as if she has spent several days screaming, or perhaps singing at the top of her lungs.
“That’s good to hear, Len. Have you consulted Red of our next steps? Perhaps your next step is going on a date with me.” she says
“I had no idea you felt that way, Glinda,” he says, “perhaps you think there’s no need for me to consult Red at all. Perhaps we can simply execute the world’s most difficult exercise on our own, without guidance. Perhaps we should all go on dates with me.”
“No, just me.” she replies
Len’s face grows distant and his eyes betray a great fear and sadness. There is a world where Glinda would have made him the happiest man in the world. Maybe he’d find that world someday in the 715. That’s a nice dream. “I’m afraid not today, Glinda. One of these days, you’ll have to find someone else to love.”
In most places, this would be an insanely awkward interaction in a boardroom, but in this moment, half of the board members have tears in their eyes, respect for lost love. It is just these kinds of freedoms that define the beauty of the world in Len’s eyes. Cultural precedents, meaningless taboos, they do nothing but hinder a society’s ability to feel and to believe in the world.
“No, Len. You know I can’t.” she finally responds
They share a glance and Len walks out of the room without another word. She was right on one front, it was time to consult Red. And so he returns to his home, partakes in the magic white rock, and closes his eyes. He lays down and is lost in a world of paradox.
Glinda watched Len recede into the shadow of the doorway.
Len.
She couldn’t help but be enamored with him. If only he were not so careful around others. She supposed it had to do with his link to Red. He was always, in a way, afraid something would someday sever it, that he’d someday anger the concept and they’d disappear, leaving him in the lurch. It felt sometimes as if he was addicted to those visions, but it was so hard to argue with a man who could see the truths of the multiverse. Not many can.
There was a time, many years ago, where she might have had the chance to be part of Len’s life. Alas the societal expectations had given her some meaningless fear of rejection. Of course she didn’t care now, she asked him every time, but it was simply in vain by now. The dream was proverbially dead.
But nonetheless, she stuck with him. Love can be quite immutable sometimes, especially since she knew it wasn’t unrequited, at least once upon a time. At least here she was free to know that and to feel that.
The meeting dispersed, most people going off to do whatever it is they wanted to do. A couple men were jumping around the room like monkeys. You could see the joy gleaming in their eyes. I pet John. His coat was quite soft.
This was the beauty of true freedom. Not freedom from oppression, freedom from society, from expectation. When you know there are thousand of other wild countries connected to you, there comes a point where an individual life is so meaningless to the grand scale of existence that one must simply do things they want to. One must simply be fully uncaring of the universe and the world around them and one must simply be, in whatever world and existence they wish to.
What a beautiful idea.
Sometimes I wonder if Len’s philosophy wasn’t from a concept but from himself. He’s a wiser man than he ever gave himself credit for. But then again, I think he suffers under more societal oppression than any of us. He’s chained himself for the good of others. Perhaps it was time we pulled him back. No, not perhaps, it was. I was. I am.
After all, I’m free. The eyes of others have no effect on me.
Why not?