I stood there, having stopped him and his friends in the hall. I stuttered half a minute until he rolled his eyes. I blushed. Barely appropriate for getting what I needed in middle school; embarrassing at university. I'd turned to stone in his cockatrice gaze as he spoke. "You're tall, plain, gawky, lacking any curves, almost flat. Your magic lacks power. Smart, I'll grant you that much, but timidity is /never/ attractive, nor is it sexy."
I stuttered, arms crossed, hands clasped at waist level, protecting my—
I was a graduate student Phd candidate in Calculative Thaumaturgy. I taught classes, one that he attended. He was a year from his baccalaureate. Yet, /physically,/ he was my /everything./ A whiff of his lavender cologne would turn me in a hall, looking into classrooms. Very intelligent, too, despite his arrogance. I could /learn/ things from him, in addition to what my betraying body wanted to learn.
His friends laughed with him as they turned, walking away, leaving me—
Mortified.
I still wanted him. Hormones and pheromones? Doubtless. I'd made a scene. I heard hushed voices, found impetus, and rushed away.
I sat at my desk in the graduate dorm, wiping hot tears that had come unexpectedly. I wasn't sure I liked myself, but my late mother's words echoed in my head and I pulled out the contents of the bottom drawer.
A white noh mask. Black sumi-e brush strokes were incised through the surface, implying a face and a kanji at the same time, but spelled nothing. Splashes of red and yellow paint hinted it represented a lion.
"If you need courage or solace, wear it," Mother had said on her death bed, wounded in battle. She'd lived a full life, nonetheless. An anonymous war orphan as a toddler, she'd gone on to rule a prefecture.
On the inner surface was inscribed 貪欲. /Avarice./The kanji glowed faintly electric blue, only when you read them.
Two hours later, I put it on. It fit perfectly, as if carved for my face. Assembled of worked bone, the interior nonetheless felt soft and silky against my forehead, temple, and chin. I smelled chrysanthemums. I breathed in freely and felt immediately better. I felt...
Powerful...
Hidden...
Anonymous...
The mask thumped on the blue carpeted floor. I found myself in a different dorm. Undergraduate. Institutional white walls. Two desks, two beds. A chair propped under the door nob enforced privacy. The window was flung open, orange and pink-tinted sunset light streaming in. Drapes fluttered in a breeze that cooled my skin. Everywhere. I frowned. I wore...
My heart beat rapidly. Well, a man's cravat was clothing, wasn't it?
I smelled lavender and heard outraged mumbling at the same time.
My eyes dropped to the man tied hand-and-foot to the small bed. A piece of my clothing was stuffed in his mouth. He thrashed his head side to side, but stopped and stared up at me having caught my attention. He'd put me in my place this afternoon, so I'd done this? Certain parts of a man's anatomy implied that he wasn't all that frightened.
Average, I thought. "Perfect" my mind added. I squatted rapidly when I realized what he could view, did view.
I'd done this.
Maybe I'd said it aloud. He nodded, mumbled. I pulled the silk out of his mouth so he could demand, "Untie me! Now!"
I almost jumped at his command. Then, "Why?" bubbled up. Behind the mask, I'd been hidden. Remembered courage made me rub the back of my palm on his cheek.
Bristly. I shivered. "Really?" I asked.
"No."
Of course, /no./ Active in student government. President of an athletic club. Ranked high in his class, he tutored others. He was responsible. Driven. Attractive in that, also, but always taking the reins. Had to be tiresome. Being led sometimes wasn't bad, was it?
"You... suggested this?" I asked, leaning over his face, feeling his warm breath.
Expression suddenly perplexed, he admitted, "Yeah."
His head reached up as I kissed him and it was all the consent I needed.
Later, he held me. I'd untied him for practical reasons. Spooned, I felt warm, syrupy, still smelling our perspiration. In the light of the dusk, autumn crisp air cooling my skin, I looked at Avarice laying there, colored blue and highlighted in orange by the sky. The kanji glowed blue. I thanked my mother mentally.
I'd wear the mask again. Yes. Definitely. I could think of plenty of things that required courage and would provide me solace, as likely Mother had, too.
Maybe greedy was alright?
[2 1/2 hrs writing time. Author retains copyright.]
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#Writever 10.31 — Bat Man, 10.9 — Bat Mobile
[Slice of life, part of same story as 10.2 Nuit.]
What I liked when my night angel wore clothing, he had to keep his wings free, which meant I could reach (as I did) to his upper chest and brush my hand all the way down past his waist without running into cloth. It wrapped around his shoulders and groin. His wing membranes stretched all the way to his ankles, so typical human clothing didn't work. Little observations like this confirmed in my mind that his kind were a chimera of human and bat. That and cuspids that were unmistakably fangs. And a vaguely cleft lip, again like on a bat.
That he was a beautiful black man, thus his name Raven, made the bat connection even more obvious to my (apparently well-educated) eye. I enjoyed the feel of his skin and fine body hair under my palm, which considering how poorly I felt, was a good thing. I ached. I felt stretched past tissue giving way, and really tired. My hand dropped further.
"Hey! Hey there, my little chimera mom." He gently trapped and put my hand to my side where I lay. "It's a little early for you thinking about next time. We're going to be busy for awhile with other things."
He was so sexy!
My daughter, /our daughter/, was looking a lot less like an oversized red wrinkled raisin. She'd plumped a little. I'd so distracted myself, I'd not realized she'd stopped feeding and dozed off. I heard her faint breathing whistle; Raven who'd bent down to look closer, turned to me and smiled. Her birth had been rapid, uncomplicated. The baby catcher had said I'd been fortunate. Though I still didn't remember much from my previous life, before Raven found me barely alive on the battlefield, this amnesiac remembered enough to know second and subsequent births went significantly easier than the first. Speed was indicative. As was knowing to push, and how to hold a baby and feed it without thinking. I looked mid-twenties, but I was certain I'd had previous children. Something deep inside said many, which begged the question that when the world went crazy and war ravaged the cities, how many children had I lost?
"Sunny?"
I was stroking my daughter absently. So warm. So alive as her little chest filled and emptied. My heart opened and I warmed inside, dispelling the darkness a little, my constant companion. We'd made this. But...
It was hot in our tree home, as it was everywhere outside. And muggy. Homes were built for ventilation, but, with the temperature hovering at blood temperature, I thought about my piss-poor thaumaturgic skills. So skimpy for a possible former captain of armies. I could light homes at night, and I made coin doing so, but I /knew/—infuriating bits of a former life I couldn't remember learning, like being able to speak more eloquently than the locals—that daemons worked /cooling miracles./
For a price, of course.
Children weren't named until three. Heat killed so many before that age, thus the tradition of little children only being called "Child." I felt so... lacking, so inadequate. /Useless./ Maybe none of my infants had lived to their naming day.
I blinked tears as Raven moved my hand. I was too exhausted to fight. I would sleep with my little one as instinct demanded, but even a mother's heat could kill. He put her in a special hammock in the home's updraft breeze after rubbing her back and getting a groggy grehps. She flexed against the silken netting, flexing tiny hands, before feeling swaddled and dozing off again. The cradle was hung strategically to prevent her fouling her attendants or furniture.
I looked up.
A new mobile hung there. It might be days before her tiny eyes opened enough to notice the little bats that twirled and rotated on strings. I squinted; no, they were little night angels. I was right when I told the village elder she'd be daemon or angel, not the weird chimera of human kinds I was. We'd never explain it was really "chimera of human kinds I'd /become./" People in war time were suspicious of impossible miracles.
Child had no wings, not even white-feathered avian ones like mine. A single stubby horn; a monoceros. Living in trees and cliff homes, she'd have to learn to climb quickly.
Unless she could work miracles early. Climbing. Another reason she might not live to three.
The bat mobile twirled lazily. Maybe more than the breeze should have made it. Babies were miracles, but baby miracles even more miraculous.
Her mother could hope.
[Writing time, 2 hours with edits. Author retains copyright.]
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