'Nitsa (miss_midday) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2009-03-16 22:12:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | pscipolnitsa |
Who: Pscipolnitsa and Zhara (Zhar`ptitsa) the Firebird (NPC) open to any rare being that might be around at the middle of the night, in the desert, either remotely or physically.
Where: Death Valley, California
When: The Ides of March, 11:15 pm
Rating: Sarcastic narrator. Confused demon-goddess.
Somewhere, in the middle of nowhere, possibly in the armpit of California or near to it, a bird twittered - and not digitally. Zhara, the Firebird, the incarnation of beauty and ill-omen that once was afire like the phoenix - and now only a canary - chirped. And chirped. And hopped around a little, too. If she had the capacity to think beyond "food" and "pretty" she would realize that she had migrated somewhat haphazardly into Death Valley, a "spiritual center" of dehydrated tourists and strange creatures.
Her mistress, the Lady of the Rye, Lady Midday, She Who Walks at Noon, the Destroyer of Water Bottles and all things hydrating, the Personification of Sunstroke, O Riddling One, was gone. She'd been gone a while. One moment the thirty-something looking store clerk was preening herself in a mirror at her shop, Midday's Herbs'n'Things, and the next, gone. As if suddenly not one soul in all of America knew of her ever existing -- and for a while, she didn't.
Somewhere, little girls were reading stories about the demon-spirit who walked at midday and stole away children who played under the noon-day son. These little girls probably were descendants of victims of the demon from centuries before and found story books about the demon - and other scary, scary things - in the attic.
And, like a crackling match that struggles to light, a tiny voice lilted from the desert floor.
"... oh... ow... why..."
And she raised herself up onto her elbows. It felt as if she had just fallen from some crazy-tall building in Manhattan and broken to a hundred pieces. The form twitched. It was a small body, smaller than any body Lady Midday had ever had before for any long period of time. She felt very weak. Memories started dripping down the walls of her mind, of meeting and angering angels in the 1960's... of sick children... and of herself. Lifting a hand, she wiped her eyes and looked around. There was a small glowing red canary staring at her. The bird had a scorpion hanging from its beak, and it cocked its head. "Miss Midday, is that you?"
Pscipolnitsa stared hard at Zhara, narrowing her eyes some. Her vision blurred - midnight wasn't her favorite time of day. Her voice, the voice that had once lulled the minds of man into midday stupor and sometimes madness, spoke with a soft, sweet little whisper that shivered. "I suppose it is."