Who: Pscipolnitsa and Marijuana When: Back-dated to earlier this week through the next day or so. Ambiguous, yeah? Where: Places. From Southern California to NYC, ends up in the parking lot behind MJ's store. Ratings: None so far. But, uh, drugs + crazy little demon-goddess?
"So," Nitsa Roggenmuhme began, struggling to make conversation with the driver she was with, the heavy set man with oily skin and who seemed to sweat the weed he smoked and the alcohol he consumed and whatever else he ingested on a daily basis. "... you work for these people?" She had snooped around the passenger seat floor and found a business card that simply read Jones Corporation.
"Uh, yeah."
Most of his side of the conversations during their drive through the US of A consisted of "Uhs" and delayed "yeahs", with a few sidelong glances with half-mass and blood-shot eyes. She wondered, many a time, if she should drive. She noticed now that they were somewhere south of Kansas City. He rarely dropped below 100 mph and no one seemed to care...
"What is it you do?"
"... um... I... drive things for them"
"Things?" Head-tilt. "Well, are you hording little pigs in blankets or children for child labor? Or are you smuggling peaches that have been cross-bred with asparagus for some crazy new health food gimmick?" She said this with a completely straight face, but a fiery curious spark in her eyes. He was sweating badly. Dehydrated. Poor man.
"Uh..."
More time passed. Surreal time. Time in which she tried to pry every ounce of information about this man from his lips, and with each word she spoke, the man seemed to withdraw even more, as if her very voice was lulling him into a stupor he could never possibly recover from - and likely wouldn't. She even tried to sing. Bad idea.
At one point, as they were making their way further and further east, the driver picked up some more people, and a new person started driving. This one was much more alert and on something entirely different, lots of energy, big on talking... to say the least, Pscipolnitsa was pushed to the back, where she socialized with a gaggle of green plants, her bird-like companion, and the little piece of wheat she had with her.
"Zhara," She hissed through her teeth to the bird, who was busy gnawing at one of the plants. "Don't eat that. You are the sacred Firebird, the good-luck-for-a-short-while-but-more-like-bad omen-bird." She paused, smiled and glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the front seat and the group of people there, all smoking. Should they be smoking the merchandise? Not that she cared. "You know... they are lucky we haven't run them off the road into a ditch and burned them to a crisp, with how lucky you are, Zhara." The bird seemed to smile to itself.
---
Another day or so. At one point their truck broke down. They had to call someone magical who happened to be able to bring them a new truck. The magic of the New, Pscipolnitsa thought.
Another day or so. And she knew they were close. But she could hold her eyes open no longer, and found herself drifting asleep in the backseat of the new truck, which was a little more spacious, had more windows, and reeked less of body odor and alcohol, and more truly of marijuana and other various intoxicants for which Lady Midday was oblivious. For she slept. And slept. And she missed the entry into New York, and the instance where the drivers nearly drove themselves off a bridge - her presence, combined with Zhara's, never guaranteed luck by any means.
One of the driver's companions fell ill.
One of the driver's lovers at a rest stop found herself the victim of a bit of neck pain, no, not because of anything dirty but because she failed to answer the simple riddles the strange, fair-haired fourteen year old girl that was riding with the driver asked her.
And she slept. Curled up, the drivers forgot she even existed, and for a brief time, she very well may have not.