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 Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 2:53 pm
Other times a curse...
"Nowhere. Nowheres at all." She rasped sadly, pausing to lift her head and gaze around her. "Where did he go?"
And she answered herself as she was often want to do: "Gone. No trace. Learned to fly, perhapses?"
Another mournful cry broke free, her sides contracting sharply as she suppressed a sob. She had grieved so deeply and so long that if it were not for her companion it would not have been a surprise if she had died from heartbreak. Her fur was dull, her eyes duller still, and her large wings - usually a splendour of colours - hung so low that they had dragged through the dust, casting them in muted shades. She was too exhausted to fly. Too exhausted to throw up any sort of illusion. Too exhausted to walk, even, though somehow she had kept going long past the point of collapse.
"We ssshould ressst." The serpent, Panna, hissed softly as she came up alongside the winged lioness. "We can do no more good today." She had been the goddess' companion since she had been very young and was used to her odd mannerisms by now. Never, though, had she seen the usually light-hearted feline so distressed before. Never had she felt so helpless. "We mussst trussst that your ssson isss well."
"He was such a good boy."
"No." Her other self intervened. "Good boys don't run away."
"I'm certain he did not mean to upssset you." The cobra continued gently. "Look. There isss ssshade." And there was. Only a little - cast by a gathering of rocks - but enough to shelter them until the sun swung too far and twisted the light back at them. "Will protect from the wind, too."
Nodding dumbly, the goddess turned to follow the snake, stepping into the long tracks left by her body in the dust.
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2013 8:35 pm
Fortunately, or unfortunately, for Rokopelli, no searching was required.
The goddess had gone north, following the tracks of one of her daughter's. Mortals were easy to follow as they could only cover so much ground in one day and rarely moved. It was hard to lose them, though sometimes she still did.
And now, not having a strong enough memory to bring herself back to this place, Uuni had decided to stay. The shade had served her well. Uuni had curled up for a nap underneath its cool touch, casting an illusion over herself to keep from attracting. It was easy to ignore the few animals who had stopped for shade. It was impossible to ignore a goddess and her ********," she wheezed out as a body collapsed onto her. There was sand in her mouth, and rolling up into her eyes. It blocked her nose as she tried to breath. The goddess had a moment of panic, before she remembered to teleport, only a few feet away.
When she reappeared she was sneezing, coughing and tossing her head in anger. "The <******** hell," she snarled at nothing in particular, pawing at her nose and eyes with her feet.
She turned some of her hair to water and washed out her eyes, before it turned black and inky and reattached to her scalp. Then, she could finally see well enough to look at who had sat on her head. Bright, eye-scalding wings was not the first thing on her list.
Uuni's head rose and she cleared her throat, staring at the goddess in question. She had not yet noticed the snake.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:10 pm
Rokopelli let out a shriek that suggested she was in the process of having a heart-attack. And, as Uuni emerged from under the protective shield of her illusion, the tan female had sprawled out on her side and was flailing back to her paws in the most unglamorous of fashions. It took far longer than one might expect for her to find herself back upright again, too, her feathers in disarray and fur prickled up with alarm. For a moment she stood there, staring with dilated, mismatched eyes, and then - quite suddenly - she was cowering back, lifting her wings instinctively upwards as if the walls of brightly coloured feathers would protect her. She was small for a female and had grown gaunt from her anxiety, giving her the distinct appearance of frailty. It was strange, too, perhaps, that using her powers came as an after-thought.
In fact, she didn't think of using them until a few seconds after her companion cobra had tried to intervene.
Panna, all green scales and shining eyes, was not as easily spooked as her charge. Uuni's appearance had no doubt taken her by surprise but she was also of the mind that talking could solve most things (though she had not yet met someone unwilling to listen). Still, Panna had only just opened her mouth to smooth the waves of this unexpected meeting when Rokopelli remembered that she was, in fact, a goddess.
A swirl of dust lifted up from the ground and, akin to a wave at sea, drove forwards with a rush of energy towards her...attacker.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 1:55 pm
Who the ********, come on. She'd just gotten sand out of her eyes. The wall headed towards her, and like any quickly-thinking goddess, Uuni got the heck out of the way.
The teleporting was beginning to exhaust her, especially with a mind blurry from having been woken up so rudely. She'd worked hard for this body, she wasn't going to let it be smacked out by a rush of sand.
The goddess appeared on top of the rock pile, claws out as she scrambled to stay on it. She made do well enough, and frowned angrily at the attacker in question.
Then, in a display of maturity fit for a spoiled king, she dropped a spit-wad from her perch onto the goddess below. It was full of sand, so she was really just giving back what had been given to her. What an a**.
"You get reincarnated yesterday? What the hell is wrong with you?"
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 2:11 pm
She was gone. Gone. Oh right, they could do that, too. It had been a long time since Rokopelli had come face to face with another 'immortal' such as herself. Time spent amongst the short-lived mortal kind had a way of making her forget who she was at times.
Too shocked to evade Uuni's 'attack' the goddess simply stood where she had mounted her offence, wing-tips dropped so low that they rested against the ground and ears pressed flat against her head. At that moment, Rokopelli looked nothing like the deity of power that some might have come to expect. And, now that her fear was dissipating, the look on her face was slowly being replaced with confusion.
"You attacked us!" She blurted.
"Now, now." The snake spoke up suddenly, eager to set things straight. "I'm not sssure that'sss exactly what happened."
Rokopelli's head swung around to look at the cobra, her eyes clouded with tears. "Doesn't matter anyway. It's not him."
"No. But perhapsss ssshe might have ssseen him? You could asssk?"
Rokopelli's head swivelled back around, eyes tilting upwards once more. "She attacked us." Was all she said.
Panna sighed. It was difficult, sometimes, dealing with Confusion. Her head could get so mixed up and it was occasionally hard to tell who in her head was speaking or acting. At least now, it seemed she was 'whole'. It was the best of a bad situation. "You'll have to forgive my friend. Ssshe isss looking for her ssson."
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 2:28 pm
Both of Uuni's brows raised until they tickled the loose strands of inky hair clinging to her forehead.
"Right." Attacked them. Gods these days. Still, there was no arguing with someone who had no brain to argue with. It seemed her shady spot was forfeit. There was no way in heck she was going to try and win it back at this point.
Then the snake spoke, and the hair on the back of Uuni's neck momentarily rose. Those icy eyes slid slowly until the focused on the animal. Did every snake have a lisp? Their s's were nearly impossible to understand.
"So I heard," she deadpanned. Was that a poisonous snake? Better to stay on the rock, or leave entirely.
It wasn't like her to not recognize gods. Either she had no recollection of this goddess, or there had never been a meeting between them. This was entirely unnerving, and this goddess seemed exceptionally touchy. What if her son had died, and all of a sudden she started blaming Uuni?
"This kid of hers a mortal? There's no gods up here." Smart, too. The Nergui would rip their throats out and steal whatever power they could. The Nergui believed gods existed, but did not believe in them and that was dangerous. Oh, bitter irony if her son was in the Nergui. She'd pity her, then. That would be the death of this goddess, however powerful she may have been.
Though, by the looks of her, the small stature, the thin body, she was long overdue for a worship.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 2:53 pm
Panna shook her head in response. No. Khaldun was a god, though if it were not for the wings you would never have been able to tell. The snake figured the lad had gone out to discover who he was after having failed to summon any sort of godly powers but he had been gone for some time now. He would probably even be fully grown. The last she had seen him he had been a moody, gangly teenager, so angry and frustrated at his constant failures and infuriated by his mother's fussing.
And here they were, on this wild goose chase. Sometimes the snake dared to think that maybe the boy just didn't want to be found.
"Not here. No. No. Not anywheres." Rokopelli gave a plaintive cry, shaking her head. "Maybe seen him before? He has brown fur and blue wings and a mark like this one." She lifted her wing to show the mark of an abstract eye emblazoned there on her left hindquarter. "He shouldn't be out here all alone. Not alone."
Both Panna and Rokopelli were too naive to think that anything out in the world could possibly bring them harm.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 3:00 pm
"You sure he's alone?" Uuni's voice seemed unimpressed. Sons were always running of with daughters, or other sons for that matter, and were not inclined to come back. If this goddess had been her mother, she wouldn't be coming back, either.
"Haven't seen him, either." Must keep to himself, mostly. That was fairly well and good for the goddess of blood magic. If the gods wanted to ignore her entirely, it would be a nice life indeed.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 3:16 pm
Rokopelli looked momentarily stricken and then her face curled into that of suspicion.
"Could be lies." She mumbled quietly under her breath, the fur on her neck bristling in response.
"But why would she lie?" The goddess answered herself in a placating tone.
"Ssshe wouldn't." The snake interrupted, deciding quickly to put an end to the feline's debate. It wouldn't help things now and perhaps there was some use to be had from this. "If you have not ssseen him, perhapsss you can tell usss: do you have certain landsss you haunt? Onesss we can rule out in our sssearch?" Her drawn out words made her speech longer than it would have been otherwise, but she - at least - spoke some sense. Further proof that the little goddess would have been utterly lost without her.
"We can't sense him, Panna." The goddess interrupted and the look that passed between them would make it clear to any observer that this was a conversation they had had many times before. Rokopelli would fret for his life and Panna, with her eternal patience, would tell her that he may simply have blocked her mind-link. Perhaps he had learnt that much at least.
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Posted: Wed Jan 09, 2013 3:31 pm
Uuni decided not to point out that he could have been disguised as a mortal. This goddess was starting to creep her out more and more. First, the accusations of an attack, then muttering under the breath. What it sounded like was a god who had lost themselves to their domain.
Perhaps this 'son' was not a supposed son at all, but another half of the goddess she'd left behind and forgotten. You had to be careful to keep all parts of yourself together, or it mixed and muddled your mind until you were not sure which place you were in and which you were not.
"The bullheaded group by the ocean, the--you're asking the wrong question." Honestly, they'd be hardpressed to find a place Uuni hadn't been. "I don't tend to frequent the places that consider themselves peaceful." There just wasn't as much demand for making yourself bleed there, she supposed.
"If the lions seem friendly, you're probably off to a good start."
It was hardly a proper indicator, however. There had been that elephant who was merely desperate for her young son to be returned. There had been Elcca who had simply seen a ritual somewhere and merely wanted a curse reversed. It was a complicated affair.
But she didn't really care about some goddess' other self, or tiny son. This was a waste of her time.
"Well, good luck." The last thing she needed was to be drug into this mess.
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Posted: Thu Jan 10, 2013 11:00 am
The answer was not as helpful as Panna had hoped. The world was a strange and foreign thing to her and perhaps more so to Rokopelli who had travelled the lands and gotten them so muddled in her head that she was next to useless when it came to navigation. "Thanksss for your help, anyway." She replied, bobbing her head in a polite gesture that seemed very much off coming from a snake. Certainly, her parents had instilled good manners in her as a young snakelet and Rokopelli had been her father's charge long before she had come along to take over the role. Who would care for the poor confused feline if not her or a member of her family? It was a task she was suited for. One she was used to. Truly, the serpent wasn't sure how the goddess had survived when she had been without a companion.
"I'm sssure that--" Panna started to angle her head around to look at Rokopelli as she continued only to see the goddess' wings come up; partially obscuring her distraught face. And, in the next moment, the goddess was gone; only the imprints of her paws left in the swirling dust. She wasn't great at flying or using her powers but teleportation was something the little feline excelled at.
That, Panna supposed, was how she had survived without her father and before she had come along.
With a short sigh, the snake turned to look back up at Uuni. "Ssshe isss not alwaysss like thisss." Just mostly. Normally, when she wasn't out of her mind with worry, her behaviour could be amusing and endearing. Right now, though...it was something else. It was tiring.
"Thank you." The snake ended at last and then, with another short bob of her hooded head, she turned and slid off across the ground. Sooner or later the goddess would catch hold of her thoughts and reappear again. Until that time, she'd have some peace and quiet.
/fin
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