I hate that bird. I hate that bird.
I hate that bird. I’m going to kill that bird if I ever see it again. I’m going
to kill that bird if I ever manage to dig my way out of here. Amaterasu-Sami send me help, melt the snow
from above.
No, we don’t ask for help we do it
ourselves. We are strong. I am strong.
Pfft. It’s only a hundred tonnes
of snow and rock. I can dig.
Dig.
Dig.
Grrr. Inari… Omikami! No, I spit my pearl at you
snow rock ice! You will NOT BURY MEEEEEEE!
A flash of
lightning from the clear blue sky dug a tunnel into the jumble of avalanche in
the Nepali mountains and a red dot emerged from the melted tunnel. The one-tailed fox shook itself clean and as
it did so, a second tail appeared with its first brush. The red coat began to
shift toward white and black so the fox was three colours at once… then it
crouched in the snow and transformed into an ordinary looking white fox.
The
ordinary fox trotted down the avalanche, pouncing from place to place, as the
unstable surface shifted further, sealing the hole it had been in, making new
and more dangerous falls of snow, now mixed with tree-trunks.
She could
feel her friend’s pain, the energy that would have given her so much more power
were it channeled properly and she yipped and yipped and yowled as though she
were in heat as if she could howl her support across the planet. I’m
coming now! I’m coming again! I am with you, Lamia’s child, Sphinx’s
student! We will be one, soon!
No humans
lived for leagues around and the fox sat, panting, sliding down the trunk,
scrambling to stay upright. She gave a
quick sideways look then leapt into the sky and bounded across the remaining
mountain in one jump. Having two tails
was fun. She could jump so much further!
But she was hungry. She staggered out of a second jump that was only a single
valley, then half a league. She stopped,
head hanging, all four legs spread, panting. She took one step, then another,
and all but fell on her muzzle.
She was so
tired. She was so thin she was nearly
transparent. She staggered to her feet, realizing she stood in the upland valleys
of India, having finally escaped the snow. In the spirit world she only had one
tail… she was so tired and starving she felt like she only had half a tail.
Her burial
had taken everything she had. She walked
down the last mountain on her own four paws, weaving with exhaustion. She was
finally in India and stopped on the shores of the infant Ganges river and
caught a fish. She managed to dragged herself and her catch onto a rock at the
shore.
She
collapsed on top of her fish and fell asleep before she could eat a single
bite, her white fur shivering into yellowish red, to better hide her against the sand.
**
The highest
of High Priests of Amun, in Aegypt, Neirth-Amun, born to a prostitute and a
brick layer by the name of Tai, given to the temple as a sacrifice proving
their marriage, leaned forward on his serpent staff.
The Royal
House leaned toward the avatar of Bast, whispering behind elegantly painted
nails and leonine eyes blinking as he bowed before them.
The young
avatar of Re, bright blue with rage stood before them, stamping his feet and
lisping his outrage. “I din’t wanna be hewe!” He squalled. Neirth-Amun regarded the boy indulgently.
“My dear
Re, it is for your own safety that all avatars of the Goddesses and Gods have
been brought to Alexandria.”
“I’w safety
you!” The little boy bellowed. His powers were beginning to actually manifest
around him. “You pwiests aw too oily,
wif youw smiles!”
Re was only
five. It was too bad he was so
precocious. Neirth-Amun had been forced
to arrange an accident for the previous, elderly avatar, all because of that
idiot in Kush who was now apparently struck down out of the blue by someone or
something. He’d forced their carefully
laid plans into utter chaos by having the Candace’s princess snatched in his
own bid for power.
The Pharaoh’s
serpents were coiled around her throne, including the padded bench that Bast
favoured. The volcano had been so much
bigger than anyone had expected that Aegypt had been forced to call all their
Divines to Alexandria.
“You pay
attention to me, old man!” Re lisped. “I
have the powa!”
“Indeed,
Divine of Re. You do.”
He pulled
the flasks of gas out of his sleeves and even as Re took in a deep breath,
probably to yell some more, one shattered almost silently between them. Re crumpled in a heap and Cleopatra and Bast…
such a shame the young woman who was the cat Goddess’s avatar should have to
have her throat cut… leaped up, Bast beginning to transform into a leopard, as
his other two sleeping gas vials shattered on the floor at their feet. They too slumped down where they stood, a
serpent or two raising their heads but then sinking into slumber.
The baby
princess and new avatars would be so much more biddable. He pulled a sacrificial sickle from his belt –
one must do these things correctly, of course – and cut Bast’s throat where she
lay. The body began to shimmer, and
vanished away almost before he stood up.
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