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 Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:09 am
 She was standing in full view, wings arched up, head level with her shoulders, paws square. For a moment she looked like a statue, unmoving as a rock but brilliant as stained glass. Then her wings moved and she took a step forward.
She was a small Goddess, sparkling with jewellery and plain except for the brilliance of her wings and the striking colours of her eyes.
And then she was singing.
"The lady had eyes of the sea, they say, eyes of the great, blue sea. And many men fell for those eyes, they say, fell for her words and lies. For she was a lady of many a skill, a lady of many a skill..."
She stopped, raised her head and then shook it vigorously. Strange, she couldn't seem to get rid of that song. Why couldn't she forget it? Oh, wait, she knew why. It was that thief-god. Or the one who had accused her. No...wait...she had accused him? He had stolen her snake-jewellery.
No, wait...the snakes were still there around her wrists.
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:29 am
 Kinagiri was wandering along, muttering thoughtfully to herself- though around her neck lay a snake who listened to the chatter. As was usual, the lioness allowed her accomplice to ride along lazily. He was especially good at convincing her to do so while they were on longer walks. She mostly agreed because it was the quickest way to get where they were going.
"This is quite the trip this time," she said finally, speaking directly to Jino this time, "We'll have to stop to hunt soon." They did have a destination, as normal, but it was unexpectedly far- but they both had decided it would be worth the trip. A quick stop to hunt was not going to slow them down much, Jino was very useful for- or talented at- tracking food.
She was quite oblivious the sound of nearby singing. Jino hummed quietly to himself, and though he listened to Kinagiri his focus was much more scattered than she might have expected. With somewhere to go, there was little need to pay a good deal of attention to their surroundings until she recognized the area from her vision. Otherwise he only had to keep a third eye out, metaphorically, for anything that could be dangerous.
"Yesss," he agreed with a lazy hiss, and he flickered his forked tongue as he thought he heard something nearby. Something singing, it sounded like.
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 10:43 am
"I...I thought he took them from us." She murmered softly to herself, lifting each paw in turn to look closely at the golden snakes. But sure enough they were there. So then, maybe he hadn't been a thief. Maybe she had! But then...what had she stolen?
No. No. Stop confusing things!! She thought to herself. No one stole anything. He was just mad.
"Pelli. How does the rest of the song go?"
"Umm..."
And she moved onwards, slowly, moving with no set direction. She was simply wandering, not paying any attention to where she was going.
"Oh Lady with eyes as blue as the sea, tell me, what do you see? Is it a land, oh a prosporous land, a place for the good and the free?" She paused and then raised her voice a little louder.
"The Lady sang kindly, wisely and proudly, she sang like the bird at morn. She sang of a land which could never be found..." Rokopelli paused, shook her head. "We...we think we're forgetting it. Yes. I think we are!"
And then a bounce returned to her step and she paused again, overturning a rock to see what lay beneath.
Nothing...
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:05 am
Kinagiri didn't need to be a seer to realize when something was up, she knew immediately that something had caught Jino's attention by the way he tensed, the difference in his grip around her neck. It was similar to when he got a vision or sense of something, though it wasn't the same. It was enough to get Kina paying attention, though.
"What?" she asked in a hushed voice, her ears flattening as she listened- catching the faint sound of the singing herself now. It was unexpected that they'd run into someone without any warning, it rarely happened. Her gold eyes went to Jino to see how he reacted.
Had Kina commented, Jino would have agreed. Usually he might have seen something before he heard it, but not this time. With another flicker of the tongue, he tensed as he summoned a vision to go with the sound, something to indicate why it was a surprise and if it was worth investigating.
He turned immediately to the proper direction.
"Confusion?" he hissed, "How fitting. This way." And that was all he needed to say to get the lioness moving towards the singing goddess.
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:19 am
And as Rokopelli turned again, almost completely going back on herself, she realised she had no idea where she was going. She came to a halt, turned her head this way and that and then decided she was lost...again.
How many times was this now? How many times did she go over this again and again in her head. She really needed to pay more attention to where she was going!
See, this never happened when Nyoka was here, unless of course, she didn't tell him their location. Then they ended up getting lost anyway.
"Maybe we should go and see him?" Roko spoke what Pelli was thinking.
"Nyoka doesn't likeses us no more. He has...Janja." She wrinkled her nose and thought back to that incident...where she'd almost dropped Janja to her death. Then those harsh words, those piercing words. She'd been in a different frame of mind then, and despite the personality switch, Pelli was still hurt and affected by those memories.
And...when there was no one else around, she realised how much Nyoka had helped fill the hours of boredom. It made her feel quite sad.
She opened her rainbow wings and with a powerful downstroke, went aloft, the land left her and suddenly the wind was in her face. And as she looked down at the sparse landscape she saw something.
Something walking in their direction. A lion? But not just a lion. A snake! A green snake! Nyoka? Could it be?
And with a cry of joy she swooped down low, misjudging how close the ground was. She crashed into it and bowled head over heels through a clump of foliage, coming into sight of the travellers. She lay on her belly, legs sprawled, head wavering as she tried to get her bearings.
She really should learn how to control herself...
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:47 am
She didn't need to be told twice to go and investigate, it wasn't everyday they were caught off guard like that and she was curious herself about what Jino had missed even if that wasn't why Jino wanted to investigate. Not that she knew why. Until very suddenly there was a very colorful ... bird? ... in the air- and soon it was diving towards them. The lioness took a swift jump back, just to be safe, and watched as the very colorful bird turned out to be a lion. A winged lion who seemed almost to hit the ground headfirst and disappear into the grass.
"What was that?" she asked loudly, rhetorically. Her eyes went to Jino for any indication of it was safe to approach.
Jino flinched prematurely as the goddess swooped down towards them, watching as the excitable creature tumbled to the ground. He didn't look at Kina when she looked to him for advice, as was usual where she couldn't tell anything about any dangers she might put herself in, and instead he pushed him self off of her neck. Hitting the ground with a thud, he slithered forward, taking the lead himself.
"Confusion," he greeted.
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 11:59 am
She closed her eyes to stop the land swimming and when she opened them again, there he was. Nyoka!
Then he spoke and she gave him a look that was most certainly confused. "Where?" She cast a quick glance over both shoulders and then laughed merrily. "No, no, it's Rokopelli. Don't you remember us Nyoka? We were just thinking about you! How did you get all the way out here? Is Janja..."
And then she noticed something. Nyoka certainly was looking different these days. She didn't remember him having green bands on his body like that before. He looked lighter too and...
"Hey, wait a minute..." There was suspicion in her voice. "You're not Nyoka!!"
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:23 pm
Kinagiri stayed back, looking on with her own expression of confusion and amusement. This certainly was unusual, and she wasn't sure she had anything to add- except that she was intent on keeping Jino safe if anything went wrong. She took a step closer, but then stayed where she was and gave them some space. Either Jino had another identity, or there was something to his repeating the word 'confusion'.
"Rokopelli," he corrected himself when she introduced herself, wondering why he couldn't call up a name or anything. He swayed a bit at the mention of Nyoka, not an unfamiliar word to him as a snake himself, but he very quickly realized she was mistaking him for someone else. Searching for an explanation, he finally managed to get something, to figure out who these snakes were.
Very interesting.
"No," he agreed when she figured it out, coming back to reality just as she exclaimed, "My name isss Jino."
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 12:37 pm
She blinked and sat up, shaking herself down. Then she stepped from the grass and checked that everything was in place. Her headdress, her fine braided locks, her necklace and her prized possessions: The golden snake bangles.
She smiled. "Jino!" She repeated, finally catching sight of the other lioness. She canted her head and glanced between them curiously. There was something about these two...something she couldn't quite put her paw on.
"We're Rokopelli, a Goddess, see?" She spread her wings wide. "We were singing this song and then all of a sudden we forgot it. Actually...we got confused about where we were and why we were so angry. And when we thought about it, we weren't angry at all. So now we're happy."
She smiled wider. "We had a snake once. Green too. We miss him. Thought you were him."
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:16 pm
"Kinagiri," she offered her own name to the goddess when she noticed that she had finally been spotteed. And interested goddess, with very interesting decoration- very shiny and pleasant to look at. The snakes around her legs were particularly nice, Kina thought, and imagined that Jino's ego would lead him to imagine the same. The idea made her smile a bit. Other than that, Kina had no idea where this conversation could lead. She'd seen nothing to offer the goddess, wasn't sure how they could benefit- though a goddess seemed a good place to try.
Hmm.
"We heard you singing," Jino commented when she went on about how she had been singing. Or how.. they had been singing. It was uncommon to find someone speaking in the first person plural. In the back of his mind, he too was trying to think of if there was any way to take advantage of the situation. He weighed the possible pros and cons of trying something so devious with a goddess, and for now he offered no more than conversation for now.
"Nyoka," he said, repeating the name that she'd called him and working from what he'd seen, "But he left for Janja, for a family. That's too bad."
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 1:26 pm
She nodded, glancing between them again, finding it somewhat amusing that the lioness was the colour of a snake. She'd never seen a green lion before. She'd seen blue ones. Juuku was blue and so was Bahari.
But never green!
"Singing? Oh yes, that's right. We forgot the song." She looked thoughtful for a moment. "Nevermind. A thief taught us that song. We're glad we forgot." She nodded matter-of-fact.
Then her eyes fell to look at the snake. Both eyes, one orange and one purple were mixed with surprise and awe. She took a step closer and lowered her face closer, to get a better look at him. He could have struck her if she wished, but Nyoka had bitten her before. Her fear of snakes was non-existant.
"How did you...?" She shook her head and her eyes filled with tears. "Did you see him? Was he happy? Were there little snakes?" She blinked back the tears, feeling the loss of her friend heavy in her heart. "Did he mention me? That he was still mad?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 26, 2008 2:02 pm
At a loss, and clearly noticing that the conversation was mostly between Jino and Rokopelli, Kinagiri knew she was going to have to sit this conversation out and act only as an observer. She would not leave Jino, and in the meantime she could try to focus on ways of making this distraction work out better for them. She sat down and curled her tail around her feet, trying to focus now on getting this conversation figured out as well as Jino.
Rokopelli was a very strange lioness. There was no telling if she was strange for a goddess or not, though. Very scatterbrained seeming, but at the same time still very amicable. He was very pleased with himself when she suddenly was very surprised by what he'd said, offering his very best fake-sympathetic smile when she looked at him with tearful eyes.
Opting not to answer her questions directly, he glanced back at Kina for only a split second before looking back to Rokopelli very sincerely.
"Yes, I- we've seen him," he said, "But not physically. You see, we're what are typically called seers. We see, hear and know things.. that we don't necessarily have to witness."
"Yes," Kina said suddenly, snapping out of whatever concentration she had and taking a couple seconds to focus back on the situation at hand. When she was fully back in the present, her own present, she stood up and stepped closer. "He's still upset."
Jino looked over to Kina as soon as she spoke, as if expecting it, and he smiled as his point was proven. At least, on some level. He looked back at the goddess, "See?"
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2008 4:55 am
She listened to him as a child would listen to a gripping bedtime story. Except this story - no matter how intriguing - was confusing her just as much. Here was a snake who could tell her things despite the fact he had never met Nyoka. They had seen him but they had not seen him?
"Spying?" She whispered the thought aloud.
Then the lioness spoke and her head snapped up, eyes striking. "Still upset? But...but..." Her voice trailed off, returning her gaze to the snake again.
"We don't understand. Are you magicses? How do you know what he's feeling? What he's...doing." She shook her head, mystified. "He's blocking his mind...we can't..."
"Not mind-reading, Pelli!" To the others it might have seemed like she were interrupting herself, the tone of voice slightly different from her usual.
"Then what?" She glanced between these newcomers somewhat hesitantly.
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Posted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 12:04 pm
Kinagiri nodded when she questioned about what she said, stepping up beside Jino and taking a seat once again to make herself more comfortable- and perhaps the goddess as well. She would look less intimidating if she were sitting, and it dropped formality- something that Kina generally felt made others more comfortable around them.
Now she had to trust that Jino would know where she was going with what she said and would cut in when it was suitable.
"Not magic," she repeated, "Dreams and visions, we see, hear, feel things that are happening, have happened or will happen."
"Seers like usss can control what they see," Jino cut in, explaining a bit about them personally, "You mentioned Nyoka, and I wanted to know more about it." Nevermind that Jino could only know what Rokopelli herself had experienced, what she'd seen and done. He was not about to discuss the limitations of the pair of them with the goddess. Kina could see more, he was relying on her supplying any extra information.
"We could answer some of your questions, perhapsss," he offered, considering the pros of helping a goddess to vastly outweigh the cons. Even if he didn't yet know what benefit this could have.
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2008 4:56 am
She listened with great curiosity. They have dreams and visions that weren't just make-believe but real things. Things that had really happened and were going to happen! That could be extremely useful.
Suddenly she wondered why Gods didn't have that power but supposed there must have been a reason. A shame really. She would have liked to see things like that.
Then something hit her, a cold feeling of dread that had her blood run cold. What if they discovered her past? The terrible thing she had done? She tried to keep her face straight but the panic flashed visibly in her eyes. No, no, don't give them a reason to think you're hiding something!
She pasted a smile back on and settled more comfortably, folding one forepaw over the other. "Can you seeses what will happen in our future?" She chirped curiously.
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