Sybaris yawned hugely and coiled herself around one of her
access poles in the library and slid down a dozen centuries, turning slowly as
she slid, green eyes scanning the levels as she passed.
Her coils
tightened and she slowed to a stop at the Ziggurat level from before the fall
of Babylon. Temis wasn’t clicking, and
clacking through the tablets though. She
had her talon covers on and was carefully leafing through the birch-bark pages
of the northern tribes.
“Hello, love,”
she said, and wound herself through the gate.
“My dear!” Temis pushed her spectacles onto the top of
her head and pounced, carefully away from the books but Syb coiled her up and
rolled her toward herself. They ended up
tangled together, breast to breast and nose to nose and both started
laughing. When she caught her breath,
Temis asked, “How is the Kitten doing?”
“She’s…
upset,” Sybaris said. “Asteri is still
gone, her very own ushera is no-where
in my sight… I’ve been looking in my mirror and all I can see is snow and
lightning. Not a good combination. It think the ushera is from very far away… China? Korea? Oceania? Perhaps as far
away as the Aleuts and something happened in Tibet.”
“Syb… you’ve
been hiding something from me.” Temis put both her paws on either side of the
lamia’s face. “You went to talk to Them,
didn’t you?” She rubbed her chin across Sybaris’s cheek. “They always make you bleed when you do that.”
The lamia
looked down, not meeting her friend’s eyes and then leaned forward and put her
lips gently up against the sphinx’s long, elegant pointed ear and
whispered. “They made a mistake.”
Temis
pursed her lips, wrinkling her muzzle in a smile that exposed her fangs. “Oh?” She wiggled in Sybaris’ coils. “Oooh,
scratch between my wings, please!”
Sybaris
reached up with the spike on the tip of her tail and delicately scratched
between Temi’s wings, using both hands to dig into the fur along her
sides. “I’ll do my best not to tickle!”
The sphinx
wiggled around till her head was on Syb’s shoulder. “So tell me how They made a mistake and what
you are planning to do.”
Sybaris
sighed. “They gave me leave, to leave
here to come talk to Them. Then They
started bickering amongst Themselves and didn’t rescind that permission.” She
paused.
“And you’re
going to take advantage,” Temis hissed into her ear.
“You know
me too well.” Sybaris turned and kissed her.
“I suppose after a few centuries you’ve had a chance to study up on me!”
“Stop
kissing me, at least right now. I’m
going to miss you. I’m going to be horribly alone and you’ll owe me a lot of
love and cuddles when they catch you and hurl you back here.”
Sybaris
hissed quietly and ran her talons through Temis’s fur and curled into her
hair. “I’m going to miss you dreadfully,
you big pussy cat.”
“Not a cat.
Meow. I love you.” Temis’s eyes were
full of tears. “The Kitten needs
you. There’s something horrid happening
on the heels of the volcano. I’ve been
dreaming.”
“You too? I’ve seen a lot of blood and murder in my
mirror.”
“Do me a
favour?”
“Of course
my love.”
“Take the
light away from your mirror room when you go.
I don’t want to be tempted to look.”
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