hermayane granger (![]() ![]() @ 2011-07-24 18:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! narrative, ! placeholder, amaya vega |
WHO: Amaya Vega [LA TORMENTA], Periboriwa, and Abe-Mango (Maya's goddess bffs)
WHAT: A changing of the tides, so to speak.
WHERE: Maya's head, technically.
WHEN: After her lunar explosion.
STATUS: Complete.
Maya opens her eyes and gasps. She’s not on the battlefield, or in Psi house, or the infirmary. There are no soldiers. No friends or enemies. Every other person and thing, insignificant details of her mortality, begins to slide away from her. Maya is standing on the moon. Or what standing on the moon would look like if imagined two thousand years ago. Soft, luminous, like a recently buffed pearl, the landscape--or lack of it--stretching in all directions. In the black sky above her spins the Earth, but she ignores it. In the distance, a fog grows, swells towards her, then dissipates. Two familiar faces step forward from it.
Abe-Mango is round and beautiful, in an otherworldly way, but she looks distraught, resigned. When Maya had seen her before, all those years ago when she had been blessed, she had radiated warm golden light and made Maya feel at ease with just a smile. Now she is dim, bluish. She stays back, though, as the other figure steps in front of her and comes to Maya. Periboriwa is tall, and towers over her. She is sharp and angular, with cold grey eyes and velvety skin. Abe-Mango is the mother; she is the warrior. A thin scar stretches from her temple, all the way down the middle of the torso, and ends at her knee. It is the wound from which her blood fell to the Earth, when she fought in that divine battle thousands of years ago. Each drop spawned one of her people. And then she was buried, locked away, in her prison, the moon.
She gives Maya a smile, baring her teeth, and speaks in Spanish. “Hello, pet.”
Maya glares up at her. “What do you want, Periboriwa? Why am I here?”
The goddess’s expression falters, and her brows knit together. “I have not been satisfied with you lately, Amaya. Ever since that idiot,” she says with a sneer, “you have become sidetracked from our mission for greatness.”
“He’s not an idiot.” Maya snaps, as she suddenly remembers John, John who is most certainly an idiot, but no longer a human, but maybe he hasn’t survived--she stops herself. “And it is your mission. Not mine.”
“It was for some time, dear girl.” Periboriwa raises her hand to cup Maya’s face affectionately, but the girl lowers her eyes in disdain for the gesture. “I bound myself to you for a reason, little one. You have the fire, the ambition that I desire. You were so easily molded as a girl.” She sighs. “I made a mistake, that night, coming to you and attempting to kill you for your body. I should have known better. I was angry. But I am wiser now--I have seen your life, my little star. I have seen what you can do. You are my warrior. We can do this together, without the force of my hand.”
Maya has lost all of the anger from her voice. “What do you mean?”
The goddess smiles without her teeth, and this time, it reaches her eyes. “If you promise to continue to aid me, I will give you gifts beyond your imagination. I do not think I require possession of your body any longer, if my plan succeeds. Our link will be sustained by other methods.” She grows quiet, then reaches into the folds of her garment, extracting a silver and moonstone pendant in the shape of a crescent. “Do you accept?”
Complete control over her body. No feelings of conflict between what the goddess and her own brain thought was the right thing to say or do. No excruciating pain when she made a mistake. No nightmares. Freedom. Maya feels like she can breathe for the first time since she was a child. She nods. Periboriwa lowers the necklace over her head; the pendant feels far heavier than it looks, but it isn’t uncomfortable.
“Unfortunately,” the goddess continues, “we will no longer your services, Abe-Mango. As discussed.” With a wave of her hand, the other goddess steps forward, tears welling in her eyes. She carries a clay pot of oil, which she dips her fingers into and places over Maya’s heart and eyelids. She stops a second to weave a bit of Maya’s hair, then kisses Maya’s eyelids and forehead. “Sweet girl,” she says softly, “I will miss you.”
Her tears are mirrored in Maya’s eyes, and her chest swells with sadness and confusion. She feels warmth drain from her as Abe-Mango walks away, into the mist. Immediately, she notices more changes--her skin glows softly, and she feels lighter, detached from whatever is happening to her. Periboriwa takes Maya’s face in her hands again. “If you hate me when you wake, try to remember what we’re actually here for.”
When she taps the crescent pendant, Maya’s world goes dark. Then she opens her eyes.