Things were not right, not right at all and that worried Dalila’abadi, her mother Mtima’safi –whom she spent a lot of time with doing mother-daughtery-family things—hadn’t been home in a few days, it wasn’t like her. The pale blue goddess recalled in painful detail the last time she saw her mother, the worry she felt at the abrupt disappearance of her mother, and how her very good friend-if they still were friend has also pulled a vanishing act.

“What’s going on in my life?” she mused out loud, then inhaled the stagnant mucky smell of the lands she wandered in. She was hoping to clear her mind by walking; all she was managing to do was fill her mind with mud. “Things will work out..mom’s fix everything...” she sighed, Mtima’safi would show up, she would have to…and the mess with Uhai would clear itself up she was sure of that…he knew now why she tried too hard to restore his memories..would he accept them?

Dali groaned as her foot sunk into the muck of the swamps, “You’d think I’d remember how messy swamps are..” she groaned again.


Sedna fluttered her wings excitedly, a new morning, a new time to sing! She'd been searching the world for the place she belonged and this morning that place was the swamps.

Clearing her throat she belted out a long obnoxious note, "LAAAAAAA!" Oh yeah! I sound great! The black and turquoise female bird was raised by two wonderful singing birds..unfortunately Sedna wasn't the same species..and didn't seem to inherit her mother's voice.

"LALALALALALAL-SQUAWK!" She sang happily really belting out the notes to..an unrecognizable song.

Dali tugged at her paw grumbling, okay..she could hold it together, no melt down..no melt down.. She was having an emotional moment, one of those 'I'm too afraid to admit I'm afraid' moments.

SQUAWK.

"What in the world?" The goddess looked around terrified by the horrendous noise that echoed through the eerie trees. "Is someone..t-t-there?" She called to the sound.

SQUAWK!

In her fear Dalila'abadi teleported unsticking herself from the mud and reappearing in the water near her original location. "Great, Dalila, your mom's missing, your long lost lover hates you, and now you're soaking wet running from an imaginary monster..you're really moving up in the world. You're a great goddess," she spoke to herself cynically.


"SQUAw-" Sedna tilted her head, the splashing Dalila made distracting her away from her alarming song. Flapping her wings she fluttered to another tree to get a better look at whatever had made the sound, perhaps it would be her breakfast.

Fixing one eye on the blue...thing Sedna tilted her head again, was that a bug? It had bug wings..did bugs come that big? She didn't want to stay in a location where a bug could eat her and not the other way around, no-sir-ee, not her.

"Squawk! Biggest bug ever!" she cried and fluttered her wings causing a ruckus.

"Bugs, where?" She shouted to the odd, small voice, "Are they on me?" She clenched her eyes shut and tried to feel every inch of her skin, wondering where they would be crawling. She didn't feel anything, the blue goddess opened one golden eye and looked around.

"Hey, it isn't nice to joke about bugs, they're disgusting!" Dalila shivered involuntarily. She didn't liken her wings to insects, although they did have the same iridescent translucent-ness as some dragonflies.

"Where...are you?" She'd heard the ruckus but was too afraid of the imaginary bugs to care. Perhaps she'd gone crazy, like Indu felt she had.

"Squawk!" Senda called again, the bug could talk and didn't think it was a bug at all! How peculiar! Sedna fluttered to a closer branch to get a better look at the large-blue-bug, "You're a bug, that's who! You..you don't eat birds do you?" She called nervously. Now both females were on edge, one emotionally raw and the other disrupted from her morning ritual.

"If you eat birds..I'll have to find a very, very large bird to eat you," Sedna squawked again in a high pitched voice. The black an turquoise bird's logic was..odd and she wasn't necessarily the ripest fruit on the vine.


"I promise that I am not a bug, I am a lion goddess, my name is Dalila'abadi, who's speaking?" she looked around for the source of the voice above her head, pinpointing a round-about location for where the bird was located.

"I don't eat birds, they're not my taste," pausing, "Say, were you the one making all that noise earlier? Is something wrong?" She looked around wondering what type of bird can sound so awful.

"Do you think I am a bug because of my wings? They're lion wings, I can assure you." She tried raking her memory for any incidents where a bird was able to eat a lion and could not come up with any in her memories, or any others she had seen.

"Bug wings, makes you a very big buuug!" Sedna squawked and flapped down to the water's edge sitting inside the reeds. "I am Sedna..promise you wont eat me?" She asked, but her fear was gone and she was more interested in the strange bug.

"You heard me singing?" the avian puffed out her chest vainly.

"LAAAAAAA" She chirped and then panted inhaling quickly, "lalalalalal!"

"Did it sound like that?"


Dalila tried not to cringe as her new acquaintance belted out something utterly obscene and assaulting to her ears.

"Sedna...your singing voice is...something," Dalila held back a laugh, how on Earth had she gone from worrying to smiling and being happy with a very small weird little bird? "You're..wonderful...I've never heard anyone sing like you."

"I've had a really awful week, your singing has really made it better."

Sedna looked happier than a pig in-well you get the idea, she puffed out her chest further, feathers full and let out yet another cacophony of squawks.

"I must admit, you made my week better as well! No.." she paused, "No one ever comments on my wonderful singing voice, not ever!" She hoped closer to the bug-god-Dalila'abadi.

"Why has your week been bad? Did someone make fun of your singing?" Sedna seemed concerned for her new found acquaintance.

Dalila's tense expression as she tried to fake a smile and glee changed suddenly to one of worry, her nose wrinkled and she cast her eyes downward.

"I can't find my mother..she helped me do a very big magical thing..and then disappeared...and then my best friend doesn't want to speak with me, and..and it's just.." the blue-bug-goddess held back tears as she spoke.

"Your singing makes me happy..so..can...can we focus on that?" Dalila wasn't feeling very insightfully wisdom-y, she didn't want to remember that things always got better, she wanted to forget, she couldn't forget.

"Your mom is missing? Aren't you a little old to worry about your mother having time to herself?" Sedna wasn't familiar with maternal feelings..she had chicks..well they'd be adults by now somewhere around Africa. She felt chicks would've cramped her style.

The black and turquoise avian dismissed the thought of a missing mother, mother's went missing all the time, "I suppose I can sing for you, if you think it will cheer you up?"

Taking a very large avian breath she began to belt out a tune she'd heard a hare singing in the savannah, "OOOOOOOH I WIIIISH I WERE A FIISH!" She began.

Dalila was about to defend her actions, Mtima was never too far away from her family. and if she as away she generally gave a reason and an expected time that she would be home. Before she could defend her mother, and the fact that she didn't just want some alone time, the odd little avian began her song.

"Oh..that's..that's.." Dalila couldn't say anything else, her jaw was about to scoop up water it had dropped so low. How could a bird sing so badly? They generally sounded so pleasant. In all of Dalila's memories she couldn't recall one bird just like this one.

As the avian's song came to an end, Dalila splashed and hollered, "What a song, what a song!"

"Has anyone ever told you..hat perhaps you should try whistling instead of singing?" Dalila thought that whistling would be a good alternative to the crackling squawked lyrics.

"Whistling? Why, I'd never! Spare the world of my beautiful sing? That'd be terrib-"

"You're kidding..right? This s a joke, isn't it?" Dalila interjected as the avian was about to finish her egotistical statement, "You think you're singing is wonderful." It was a statement not a question. Dalila blinked and then her eyes went wide.

"You're serious!" A laugh rippled out of Dalila'abadi before she could stop it, and once it started it wasn't likely to stop.

Sedna hoped back, indignant, why would the bug-goddess tell me she liked my singing and then be so cruel! Like all of the others! Tears filled the

"You're..you're just like all the others!" The avian squawked and was reward with another bout of laughter from the goddess. "You're a terrible person! I wish you were a bug, I'd find a bird big enough to eat you!"

"Nuh-no," Dalila huffed trying to catch her breath, the shaking of her body sent ripples through the water, scaring fish and other avians near by, what Sedna's singing didn't scare away, Dalila's odd laughter had."I didn't mean to offend you..I just.." heat rose to the young goddess' face, she felt embarrassed an ashamed, she was raised better than this, her mother would probably be quite offended.

"You're...you're just as bad as them!" Sedna felt belligerently angry, if a small part of her hadn't told her not to she would've dive bombed the stupid Dalila'abadi.

"I hope you never find your mother or friend! I hope they're gone forever!" Sedna squawked and took flight into the trees away from the stupid bug-god, stupid, stupid.

"SQUAWK!"

"That's not very nice!" Dalila shouted her anger triggered a physical, magical response and POP! she was relocated to another part of the swamps through her teleportation.

"WHY ME TODAY CAN NOTHING GO RIGHT!?" Dalila screamed angrily at the trees and mud, "Why? I want my mother and I want her now," she growled.

The goddess stood, sopping wet, angry, and sad. What now? She could go back to the family, see if they heard, or she could go looking for Uhai..either way standing here would only make her madder. Dalila'abadi started walking, any direction, she was awful with them anyway, and hoped she wouldn't run into the funny little bird again, she felt ashamed of the way she acted.