Welcome to Maid Spin, the personal website of iklone. I write about about otaku culture as well as history, philosophy and mythology.
My interests range from anime & programming to mediaevalism & navigation. Hopefully something on this site will interest you.
I'm a devotee of the late '90s / early '00s era of anime, as well as a steadfast lover of maids. My favourite anime is Mahoromatic. I also love the works of Tomino and old Gainax.
To contact me see my contact page.
The ascent went on for longer than I was expecting. Every time the path would seem to be flattening out, another incline would appear over the landscape and reveal our grand summit to be merely a hillock. The path swung slowly around to the left and East, giving us sweeping views of the valley below which sweetened the sores building up on my feet. The shelter of the birch leaves had hitherto mercifully shielded us from the solar ephemera, but in a blinding instant they abandoned us and threw us out onto a white-dust path so bright it would have burnt out my retina if I hadn't closed my eyes to a sliver just in time. The Sun wasn't far off her apex now, and the rays she was throwing down were indescribably strong. All four of us stopped dead and made various groans of discomfort for several moments, as our eyes made the necessary adjustments for this new albedo world. The Princess' eyes were first to adjust, and she made a wild gesture towards something which quickly brought my vision back. A house. A pretty little cottage with painted red doors and shutters sat just off the footpath on our right, nestled in a convenient spot of flat ground just on the boundary of the woods. A garden surrounded it with a selection of well tended herb-bushes (although the exact identification of the plants seemed to float ambiguously between a few species); the paintwork and general appearance seemed to imply recent upkeep and inhabitation. Nevertheless we approached with general caution.
The house had a peculiar air of homeliness about it. Such things are hard to quantify, but the softness of its character as a building was immediately endearing to me. The rake leant against the wall, the watering-can sat abrim under the tap of a waterbutt. It was all quite... familiar. Squeezing in past the wicker fence we approached the front door, the intriguing waft of herbs never before smelt reaching our nostrils. But despite the comforting character surrounding me some sensation stopped me right as I raised my fist to knock at the door. A strange feeling of discomfort, rumbling up into my conscious from somewhere deep in my bowels. Something was wrong, my logical mind was trying its hardest to dismiss whatever it was, but a woodsman knows better than to trust his brain too readily. I made another scan of the building. The stacked logs of the walls, the neatly aligned slats of the shutters, the little flourishes of carpentry at the corner of the cornice which ran beneath the guttering. It all felt so familiar. But it couldn't be, could it? Remember were I am. It was rather unlike the more agricultural style of construction we'd seen in the village this morning, but would equally be surely out-of-place back home too. Then why was it so familiar? Or was it even familiar at all? That feeling from my gut began to churn over as I felt the conflicting sensations of "deja-vu" and "presque-vu" at once. The only way I can describe it is by alikening it to that sensation you sometimes get when you look at your own hands for too long and start to think they look the wrong size. A queaze came over me as I looked around to my companions, but they all wore mildly puzzled looks on their faces as if to say "what's the delay?" So swallowing a lump in my throat I raised my hand and gave the door a firm treble-knock.
The glossy red paint glinted in the sunlight as the door swang open in silence like butter over glass. It was hard to say whether it opened from the force of my knock or by some unnatural motion; but either way no one was stood behind it to welcome us in. With a dull thud the door came to rest full awide, as if beckoning us inside. Stopping to avoid the lintel I peered into the front room. It was immaculately made up with dining furniture. A teak table with lace overthrow sat in the centre of the room, the cracks in the shutters painting horizontal stripes of black and white across its surface. In the lit portions I could make out the shapes of the common tools of eating: plates and cutlery set out in neat fashion as if the matron was minutes away from bringing forth the roast. It reminded me of my Grandmother's dining room, the quaint delicateness of society which always seems so weird when you've been out in nature for too long. The Princess pushed past my dawdling at the door, ducking under my arm and into the front room. The others followed suit so I bundled myself in behind them too, pushing the door to as I did as comfortably as if I were in my own home.
The others poked around the little room as I stood stock still, feeling a lot like a bull in a chinashop. I suppose we can wait here for the owner to return? But still I... My thought was cut off as the Princess pressed a small cold object into my palm. She smiled at me as I looked down at the little bronze rabbit in her hands which went with the tortoise I was holding. I almost cracked a grin. Then the sun burst into the darkened room like the face of the Almighty as the Princess' Companion swung open the shutters and let the outside in. The new illumination left me in no doubts that this really was a pretty house, and it wasn't like we were doing any harm was it? We could stay here for a while. I leant down to put the little bronze figure down next to the fireplace when behind me I heard a yell from the girl at the window. My face went cold as I wheeled around, looking first at the maid now leaning out of the window, and second at the ashen face of the Shepherd, his eyes wide like the saucer he was handling. Running over to the girl I curtly grabbed her shoulder and wrapped my hand over her mouth. But then I stopped, staring up the path at who she was still unapologetically frantically waving at. Loosening my grip I peered wide-eyed at the woman now approaching us from up the path. Clad in a dyed-red hemp dress and sun-bonnet, her face in silhouette afore the harsh sun; the strands of raven-black hair falling across her shoulders make me recognise her immediately. I would know this person anywhere. In a moment rather closer-to-call than I would like to admit I nearly called out her name in simple childish joy, but I managed to retake the reins of my mind just in time to prevent myself. Now wasn't the time to break our silence. Her kindly demeanour exuded the hospitality and comfort anyone acquainted with this lady would come to expect. The simple happiness of reunion made me feel like a child again. Pushing up the sleeves of her shirt with her pale pink arms the woman continued her path straight toward us, a path I realised at that moment was not from up the track at all, but straight out from the forest below. That moment of lucidity the timespan of a blink was enough time for my brain to ask a simple question of myself which I found I could not answer, what was her name? This person I know so well, this woman was basically a mother to me... But what was her name? Where did we meet? What is our relation? Who is she? What is she?
I stumbled back from the window as the figure strode over the garden fence with a gait unnatural to humans. The terror, which some spell had been suppressing in me, rushed forth at once in a torrent as the creature, whatever monster clad in red it was, reached the window at a terrible speed. The illusion shattered across the tiled floor as all four of us launched ourselves back into the recesses of the room, not one of us ever taking our eyes of the horror at the windowsill. A large face appeared larger than life pressed against the window glass like a wolf after rabbits. One black eye centred in its face seemed to spear me through the very heart with a straw, sucking the very wind from my lungs and the blood from my veins. Like a mocking parody of the day's sun the deep blackness of its pupil jittered across the pale-pink face of horrendous proportions. Fine crockery from the dining table crashed onto the floor as four cowering bodies went limp from fear, in a moment that could have lasted years. My mind was white with blank animal fear, racing with terrible images of doomed fight or flight. Death never arrives when you expect him. But then, without so much as an attempt at entry, the face of death was gone. Limping back into the forest the cyclopoid became a memory long before I could ever have hoped to think it not a dream. And from that dream I awoke in a house unlike any I had seen before, on a journey unlike anyone could ever dream.
