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Dangerous Conversationalist
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 Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2012 4:43 pm
Basil became suddenly excited at the sound of his Other's voice. He began looking around as if expecting his strange companion to be standing nearby to lead him out of this place. If anybody would know the way out, The Other would. The Other knew everything.
"Where were you?" He said complainingly. He glanced at the Sphinx, who gave him an expression he was not able to interpret. Like smug disbelief. He lowered his voice, "Are you okay? I..."
("Basil.") The voice said firmly, interrupting.
"What?"
("Basil, look!")
He turned his head to see the Sphinx bearing down upon him. She was standing now, deadly and enormous, her paw raised to strike at him. Her face became warped, savage like an animal. Not human at all. He was paralyzed in the shadow of her. He couldn't move! The sound of her horrible voice rang in his ears as she swiped at him. He flinched as her claws raked the first two buttons of his shirt, then met some kind of resistance. A pressure in his hands.
It happened so fast! He was shocked, he fell backwards, his heart skipping nearly every other beat. He threw his arms in front of his face, expecting her to leap on top of him, but, she did not. He was trembling as he lowered his arms to see her casually licking her nails. It was bizarre, even perverse to see a human face drawing its tongue across a feline paw. What just happened? He touched his chest, feeling for a wound. The shirt was torn in places, but otherwise complete. There were five white scratches beneath his collarbone that did not bleed. Then, he was aware that his hands were free. A realization dawned upon him slowly. Oh God. As the Sphinx made herself comfortable again, sitting prim and straight, Basil was searching in the grass. Then he saw it...
He almost couldn't recognize the brown-yellow mass... Diced. Destroyed. The pain of it. Deep and sudden. To think... a living thing had been killed for his ignorance. A friend had needed to die, because he was not smart enough. He really was worthless... He wasn't any help to anybody. He made a noise between a squeak and a sob.
The Sphinx was without remorse as she cleared her throat and delivered the next riddle. Basil was too far away to hear.
The voice appeared to him. It was soft and sympathetic in his ear. The pressure of a hand upon his shoulder. Large, masculine. ("...It was only a toad. Basil... I...")
Basil's face screwed up. His mouth, his eyes all tightening into quivering lines. He grabbed two fistfuls of grass, then put his forehead to the ground. A heaviness in his heart. A heaviness felt by the both of them. The Other welcomed himself into this heaviness. He sat within it like a comfortable chair, his voice low and soothing.
("...You want to hurt her?")
His eyes overflowed. There was a high-pitched whine at the back of his throat, broken by a single sob. He nodded to the best of his ability, scraping the ground with his fingers.
("Where's the glass I gave you?") The Other said with purpose, conviction.
Basil opened his bleary eyes. He was confused.
The Other seemed worried. Concern colored by hostility. ("I gave you a weapon. Where is it?")
Silence. A sharp, piercing feeling behind his eyes. ("You remembered to bring the toad along, but you couldn't—?") The voice was shrill with rage, echoing in his head, (" How could you be so stupid!")
Basil couldn't stand to hear that word. Not now, not here... An ear-splitting cry was his response, falling heavily onto his side. The Sphinx was shocked to say the least, ill-shaped ears attempting to flatten against the boy's painful screeching, watching as he clawed at his clothes. Beat his head with closed fists. She crouched low to the ground, twitching her tail-tip when he became suddenly still. Her eyes narrowed with interest as he began to curl up like a swatted spider. What was he doing? Her feline curiosity got the better of her, drawing near to him. Tentatively, she rested a large paw on his shoulder as if to roll him over, which he forced away with the swing of a flailing arm. She flinched, stepping back.
She snarled at him, he hissed back at her, sitting upright with great difficulty. He groaned softly. He was aching and sad. He wanted to go home, or maybe die, he wasn't sure. In any case, she was through playing with him, her eyes harsh and unfeeling as she rested her long body on the grass, "Although I enjoyed that little performance..." She trailed off.
He said nothing. She rolled her shoulders. She was getting tired of repeating herself, but did so anyway. The second riddle.
Basil didn't allow her to finish, cutting her off with a voice that could peel paint, "I don't know. That's my answer. I don't..." A pause, "I don't know anything..."
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Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 4:02 pm
The Sphinx gave a muffled roar of sorts, obviously annoyed that this pathetic excuse for...for...well whatever it was it was prey and it had cut her off mid-sentence! Whatever, his answer was wrong regardless and she would punish him well for his insolence. Quickly she grabbed up his ribbon in her jaws and took off running, dragging him along carelessly. The Sphinx would flap her mighty wings and take off, flying high into the air. When she was at a good height, she simply let go of the boy. Though he would plummet a good ways, the chimera of a creature was not finished with him just yet and grabbed him before he hit the ground. After all, he still had one last riddle to answer. But judging from his piss poor answers from before, the Sphinx had a feeling dinner wasn't too far from being served.
Landing with grace, the Sphinx gave little regard to Basil's well being and tossed him aside as soon as she'd touched ground. Getting comfortable once more, "This is your last chance child. Get this wrong and you are done for. Understood?" Once she was satisfied that he understood, the Sphinx continued. "Last riddle. If you break me, I do not stop working. If you touch me, I may be snared. If you lose me, nothing will matter. What am I?"
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Aug 16, 2012 2:02 pm
After Basil delivered his answer, it was followed by a deep, forbidding silence. He expected this. He knew he hadn't really tried. He knew The Sphinx was going to come at him again. His face was gray and immobile. He wasn't choosing life.
The voice was still able to reach him. Penetrate the numbness in his head. It sounded differently than before, as if he were speaking underwater. It was smaller. Higher. Anticipatory. Was it afraid? (You should have answered. You should have said something...)
Basil shook his head. If there was a point, he didn't see it. The Other didn't have time to persuade him. To point out that he had just endangered them both. Why was he just sitting there? Oh God, Basil, just run. Inside, The Other was helpless. He could only watch, frozen, as the Sphinx leapt at them both. The collision of bodies. Her terrible face.
Basil felt teeth clamping down on him. He flinched. The pain came to him suddenly, then splintered into pieces. She yanked his ribbon out from under him, sending him headlong onto the ground. The Sphinx needed a running start. She was going to take them airborne! She broke into a dead sprint, dragging him through the grass at a speed that bordered on unimaginable. He tasted grass and blood, weeds whipping at his face. The creature's wings lifted on an air current. It was like being the last car on a roller coaster.
He felt the weight pulling up. Nothing underneath. He was falling? No, dangling. He saw himself leaving the earth. Everything turned upside down. The wind screaming past his head until his ears popped. He didn't know he wasn't breathing. The Sphinx lifted swiftly, steadily into the fog, higher and higher. Gray nothingness all around. He tried curling his body. He wanted to cling to something. Scream. Hit her in the face.
Then suddenly, her teeth released him into the empty air, and he was falling. Free-falling.
The wind was a steady pressure underneath him. Hair and skin blown away. Flailing. Nothing to grab onto. He didn't have a voice to scream with. He tried immediately to go inside, go somewhere safe, but that's where The Other was. He resisted Basil's efforts, forcing him to the surface. It was not by choice. He would have spared him. Let him through. He wanted Basil to be with him. Somebody to cling to. Somebody to die with. There just wasn't any room. There just wasn't.
Basil would have to stay outside. He would have to fall all the way down.
What a horrible thing. What a horrible thing he had gotten them into.
From the inside, The Other did not have the same sense of reality. Not the same as if he were the one falling. He was disconnected from mortal fear. Basil's however, was something raw. Animal gnawing. Pressing against him. He could think of only one thing to make it better. One kindness, for his brother.
They were still far enough from the ground. They could not see or perceive its existence. It was vague and gray and green. The wind stung at Basil's eyes. Made his vision fuzzy at the edges. He felt strange. Hands closing over his eyes. Tight, clutching fingers. Although they were wide open, he forgot how to see. Blackness. ("Don't look down.)"
It would be alright.
After that, it was like floating. Maybe flying. This was... something. Both cobras braced themselves for the hard, unyielding ground.
Then— a huge, sudden jerk! Resistance, maybe whiplash. The feeling of going up instead of down. Basil began to squirm. They'd been caught. It was under control. There was motion, direction, coordination. The wind was not so intense as before. It softened. He swallowed. His ears popped. He could hear again, but barely. Basil landed on the ground with a thud. The wind was knocked out of him. He struggled for breath, weak and fragile. He felt grass underneath him. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Sweet, wonderful earth. He could almost kiss it!
But, he could still feel the presence of the great beast nearby. Feel her, but not see her. He tried standing up. He failed. Everything trembled. He blinked furiously, trying to rub the darkness away with his fingers. The drop was over, the blindness persisted, and The Other was nowhere to be found. He rubbed and rubbed, "Get off me," he rasped, "Get off me!"
He heard the Sphinx's voice through the blackness. It stood out to him, more resonant than before. It had more depth and substance. He sourced it immediately, and faced her, although his eyes did not find hers. She was a bit affronted by the thousand-yard stare he gave her, but was far above any sense of pity for him. He nodded, but was it a true gesture of understanding? Or the limp wagging of his empty head? She scoffed.
This time, when she delivered the third, and final riddle, he'd heard every word she said. But it was not an issue of hearing, it was an issue of understanding. He touched his palm to his chest. A pain there, pins and needles. His skin felt paper thin. His ribs, his sternum. He still didn't know. He did not feel confidant in any answer he might give her. She would crush him, he knew that much. He began groping blindly through the grass for his dogflower, growing increasingly frustrated when he could not.
His hand returned to his chest, where it felt tight and gripping. His head dropped. A sound. He couldn't speak. A dry tongue moved over dry lips, and he began again. A single word,
"Heart..."
("Heart.")
They said, nearly in unison. Basil, a gentle declaration of his hurt. The Other, a knowing answer.
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:23 pm
"Wro-wait what?" The Sphinx had been more than happily ready to declare Basil's answer incorrect as he'd gotten all the others wrong, thus she'd only assumed he'd do so with this one as well. Eyes narrowed and filled with fury, the regal creature was rather reluctant to allow her meal to leave, but he'd gotten the answer correct, an answer correct. She was bound by her word to allow him passage.
With as much spite and loathing that she could summon within her voice, the Sphinx moved aside and replied, "Correct. You are free to go."
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Aug 18, 2012 8:24 pm
The Sphinx had taken an anticipatory step towards him. It was a grim symphony to Basil's ears. The crushing of individual grass. Her weight, shifting into her leg. Her heartbeat, uproarious and excited. Each item a reassurance of her power to undo him.
Backwards, Basil crawled, anything to be away from it, anything to get away. For balance, he put a hand behind him— the one not at his chest. His skin predicting the feel of grass, it was a shock unlike any other when he felt— not gentle turf under his palm, but a thick, luke-warm, mess. He instantly jerked away from it with a thin, squealing cry, now conscious of the raw smell that lingered where he sat. He couldn't bear to think of what it was...
With nowhere to go, he threw his arms in front of his face to guard from her claws and teeth. He sputtered a mixture of phrases. Prayers and apologies that would not be commanded by his thick, frozen tongue. Suddenly, there was a shift in mood and atmosphere. He sensed reluctance, restraint. He lowered his arms slowly. He was confused. Was she not going to do it?
Where was the demise he had been promised so repeatedly?
("Get up...") The voice hissed, just barely masking that of the Sphinx.
"I... I can go?"
("Get up.") The voice said again.
He did.
Somewhere in the darkness, Basil could sense the Sphinx, fuming. Too closeby for comfort. Again, he could hear her working her tension into the ground, loosening the earth with her claws as if in an effort to keep from sinking them into his flesh. He wasn't sure what he had done to keep her at bay.
He didn't really feel safe. And he didn't feel relieved, either. He felt blurry at the edges as though he were printed on wet toilet paper. Not all here, and yet, not quite anywhere... Glassy-eyed, he smelled the hand he had put behind him. Instantly, he became sick in his mouth. It surprised him, leaping from a void without a stomach. He swallowed it down, saliva flooding around his teeth like stones in a river. The Sphinx sneered with disgust.
His hand was wet. He wiped it on the front of his shirt, turning his head from side to side, as though training his ears. He could leave, he should be leaving... The Sphinx certainly didn't see what he was waiting for.
("You can still hurt her, you know...") The voice gently suggested. Basil froze. He heard a smacking sound, like the wetting of lips. A raspy whisper, ("Make her deaf, Basil. Roar at her... Break her. I know you can.") Basil touched his tongue to the back of his teeth, as if tasting his power. The Other knew what Basil was capable of. It was his business to know that Basil could effortlessly shatter glass. That dogs ran howling from his whistle. That he could make the ground move, but, after clearing his throat, the cobra only tasted only bile. He hung his head.
Sensing reluctance, The Other became more urgent in his persuasion, ("She'll never do this again... Not to anybody! Kill another toad. Not if she can't hear...") It was not a bid for gratuitous violence. The Other certainly didn't estimate himself to be barbaric in his methods, or even wantonly evil... This was about settling a score! Anyone could see that!
("Do it.")
Their encounter with the Sphinx had been an even more demeaning experience than battling the Minotaur, in that the Sphinx was intelligent as well as fierce. Twice, she had pitted both her wits and her strength against them, and twice, she had been victorious. Mocking, judging, sarcastic. It went without saying, she needed to be taught a lesson in humility. The Other needed to prove that this was not, nor had it ever been, an unwinnable battle. Not the Sphinx, the Minotaur, or the whole damn maze. Turning away was simply not an option. He just didn't learn...
Basil knew. He knew at least a little more than The Other gave him credit for. He knew that The Other made everything into a battle, eventually... In the past, he had tried to obliging. He tried to be fair, and shut down, and let The Other have his moments in the sun, so that he could sleep at night.
But when did it ever end? Maybe it took the death of the toad to make him see that things were different now... This was not Basil's fight to win or lose. When it came down to it, he didn't want to be King.
He just wanted to go home...
There was long, strained silence. Basil was making a decision. Finally, he reached out. Staggering towards the Sphinx, more like. His hand landed gently, unexpectedly against smooth fur. A warmth underneath his open palm. She flinched at his touch, offended and confused. "H-hey!" She curled her lip at him, revealing the teeth she had intended to devour him with. He couldn't see them. They didn't exist.
They were connected that way, his palm to her side, when he mumbled something very softly. His voice was like paper. She didn't understand him. "What?" She said harshly, leaning towards him.
"Show me?" He said. She knit her brows over slivered eyes, which then widened, and filled. It became to clear to her.
He was asking her to guide him out of the maze.
She wasn't sure whether to be amazed or mortified. She gave a haughty sniff, as if to ask why she should do him a favor of any kind? And then she saw his eyes, glazed with helplessness. He wasn't trying to make a point. He wasn't trying to throw his victory in her face. It was just a request. Nothing more.
She turned away, considering it, leaving Basil to wonder if she had heard him. She sighed deeply in resignation. Nobody would have to know. And he did win fair and square... Standing up, her body felt even larger and grander when she moved. Under his fingers, he could feel bones shifting. The cording and tightening of muscles. She began to walk to a place where the mist was not so thick. A parting in the hedges where the exit revealed itself. She stopped abruptly in front of her, and sat on her haunches. Basil groped out, turning his head. Where was he? The Sphinx lifted a paw, and shoved him forward.
And that was how the nightmare of the maze ended. A clumsy stumble into the sunlight. Basil blind and broken, but wiser for it.
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