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 Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 10:42 am
Prologue: Part I "Bow your head daughter." The priestess instructed as her Kase Da brought forth the sacred herbs. Keekrradess obeyed nervously, feeling the Kase Da's thumb brush across her fine facial feathers. The ceremony was almost over, but this next moment was the most important part. Her heart shivered inside her, anticipating. There across from her, still leashed because she was unbonded, was her own intended Kase Da. The young creature was shaking and whimpering, tame but unprepared to deal with the large flock of watchers. She was still small, of course, but large enough that she could easily bear Keekrradess's weight. The lights fell, and flickering candles alone lit the room. Breathing in the smoke of incense, the young Tena Dar felt herself growing dizzy with the smell and the droning rhythms of the priestess voice. The young Kase Da was forced forward, her breath making weak little pants. This was it then. She touched the Kase Da with her beak, and felt her heart unfurl, felt her soul become ribbons that wrapped around the creature, enclosing her in light. For a moment, their shared fear was what united them, and Keekrradess could feel the unmatched rhythms of their hearts as they learned to compliment each other. The world came back into place. The fear was still there though, coming in waves from the Kase Da as she found a comfortable perch on her shoulder. It was enough to drive her to flight. She made a low churring noise in her throat, as her mother did, when her sleep was restless. She thought of peaceful things, and sent those thoughts down the through the ribbons of light she could still see when she closed her eyes. They would be one now. It would be her job to see to her Kase Da's happiness, just as the Kase Da would see to her service. She would be a good master, she told herself.
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Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 12:10 pm
Prologue: Part II Silence. Had it ever been so silent before? Her mother was given to song. Her mother, her mother sang the songs of praise, raised her voice for Rru. But they had taken her. They had taken her high and fast and away from the safety of her Kase Da. They were cowards and killers. Horrid, disgusting unbonded men, gone from Rru's grace. And they were flying free. There was no justice. The world was not just. Was not a place of thought or reflection. It was not, it was not, it was not anything she had thought. And now she was no longer sure what it was, only what it was not. As she hopped through the house, her wings folded, her beak parted as if she might find the song to express her pain, she could hear her brother crying. The young one. The sick one. The one unloved by Rru. Her mother had loved Rru. And Rru had let her die. Her brother served Rru in earnest. And Rru left him unmated, crying his pain at losing his mother into the night. And she, she loved Rru. She was a good woman. And still, there was silence, and still there were her brother's cries. And still her mother was dead and the house was hers, and the world was not what it should be. And she just couldn't understand. How could it be. How could any of it be?
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Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:18 pm
Prologue: Part III Revelation
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Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2008 10:24 pm
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Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2009 10:10 pm
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:30 pm
Another daughter. Beautiful, like her first daughter. And strange, like her first daughter. This one gripped at her with brass fingers as its mechanical bird danced the air and pecked at her skin. They were, the both of them, frantic. There was reason, if the man was correct. And she knew, somehow, that he must be. The anger in those gray eyes, it was not the anger of an infant. No, it was something different and far more frightening.
Perhaps it made it easier. Satika, who now had a daughter entering a reasonable age, still did not consider herself to have a gift with children. If she did, Taima would not be so, well, best call her troubled. Yes, troubled. Of course, she did not look as the other children did, not even as the odder of them do. Cecilia, as she'd decided to call this one, would have it at least a little easier in that direction. Of course, the neighbors would still be unhappy.
Yes, there was that.
At times, she thought it might best to leave the neighborhood, if not for her sake than for the sake of her child. Children.
But then what?
Yes, where too then? All she had ever been was one of her people. There was nothing else to be.
The small child, which was not a small child, screamed. And if there was inarticulate rage and hopeless hurt in the sound, there was also hunger. Satika knew what to do for that.
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Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2009 5:32 pm
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Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:42 pm
The being that had once been Keekrradess and which was now called by a name that was not even something that might have been pronounced in her native language, was not happy. It was not that she was surprised by the turn in her situation, she had been clear enough on what her punishment was to be. Still, to be aware of a punishment was not the same as to experience it. And she had not imagined a world so savage, a world full of creatures like the Kase Da, creatures, who were, now like her. Fingers and toes and only rarely proper wings though none for her.
Her wings. Her body. Her flight and her life and her freedom. Her cries were not an infant's screams but the quiet forlorn pipping of a caged bird, and she rocked back and forth in her captive body, wondering, somehow if this were a test. A test of her faith perhaps, that her goddess would take away her triumph at the very moment of achievement. She'd been so very close, hadn't she? It had worked, her brother had taken to the bond and...
And it was over. They'd killed him. They'd sent her here. The movement would die without her. Rru would be praised and no one would hold to the new way, the right way.
It was over. She'd failed. And this body... this body.
She called to Zives and waved her metallic hand with irritation at the flesh. It came off, when pulled correctly, in strips. She did not appear to bleed, but the process never helped for very long. It seemed to grow back rather quickly. It was also excruciatingly painful which is why she had Zives do it. She couldn't help but believe that if she just got enough off she might find her true self underneath. And then the bird started to pull, and she started to scream.
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Posted: Mon Aug 03, 2009 7:44 pm
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Posted: Wed Oct 28, 2009 10:23 am
"Woman!" Cecilia screeched the word irritably from her bed, where she'd sat in an attempt at meditation until the hunger had hit her. "Woman!"
It was infuriating the way her caretaker ignored her needs, ignored her. Often she spent more than an hour at a time away, not attending her. And she was completely incapable of predicting the cycles of Cecilia's hunger. Zives, of course, knew. Zives was flying about in agitated circles, knowing her duty yet incapable of completing it. That, at least, was comforting. Zives, unlike the woman, knew her place.
"WOMAN!" She screeched at the height of her vocal range. Finally, the door to her room opened. But it wasn't the woman who walked in. No, it was the insect, her arms crossed in front of her, her tail swaying in a display of irritation. It was no threat to her, that tail, but still she disliked the insolence of it.
"Mother will return shortly. She went to the store."
Of course she had. The woman didn't care about her, about her needs. The woman was useless, a pathetic excuse for a Kase Da. And the girl was worse. "Now." She spat the word at the girl.
"No. You will wait. We both will. And stop your screaming. I can not hear myself."
"NOW!"
"There's food in the kitchen, get it yourself."
As if she'd forage like some low animal. Without bothering to speak further, she sent Zives after the girl, the little bird shrieking her mistresses displeasure and diving at the girl's head. It was not a particularly effective attack, but it got her to leave.
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Posted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 8:42 pm
She missed her mother. It was almost funny, in its way. She had been in this place only briefly compared with the span of her life. Her mother’s death was long before, an old, old hurt. But, that had been it, hadn’t it? The moment everything broke. And she had built around that pain, dug into it and let it bleed. She had found peace and meaning in her mission, had been able to sleep without memory of her mother’s corpse, forget the smell of spilled blood.
But this place, there was nothing of her mother here. It was devoid of truth, of meaning. She was ripped from purpose for none hear knew the gods. They knew none of the names and the woman, Satika, when she prayed, prayed to a lady unlike any Cecilia knew. There was nothing here, to hold onto. So she held to the memories she had allowed herself to forget. She held to the pain she had buried before. She held to anger, and held to anger, and held to anger. She breathed it and spat it and drank it and still…
And still.
She missed Mother. Mother had had feathers like smoke and the brightest voice for song that Cecilia had ever known. Mother had groomed her, and sung of Rru (hateful, disgusting Rru). Satika sang, and her voice was sweet, though her language harsh and strange. There were times, falling asleep, when it was almost comfortable, that voice. When it almost felt like old memories. But no.
And NO.
Oh, Mother. If you could see your daughter. Her hateful body. Wingless. Featherless. Fingers and metal and a mouth like an animal. If you could see her. Would you love her, Mother? Could you? Sometimes, when Satika sang, it seemed as if she could find such love. But what cold comfort was that. That woman was little more than animal herself. Like most on this planet. It made her sick.
Mother.
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