The Sistrum Alabaster

[Aero Blue]

Three rings of smoke floated feebly amongst the queer, blank living room ambience. A larger, blue-tinted cloud of fumes awaited the three rings, the centerpiece of Amari Sussi's second-rate -- and still overpriced -- apartment, although the rings in all their desperate flight would never make it. The smoker's long, almost effeminate fingers with their untrimmed nails, playfully prodded in between them, and then slashed them asunder with deft, if lazy, strokes. The smoke-rings were ephemeral, passing, and then nothing at all, which was just the way Amari liked it.

No roommate.
Barely any furniture.
No prodding from the landlord, who may as well have been nosedeaf for all the good her 'no-ganja policy' did.
Just the passing blur and blaze of blue-smoke, sluggish shapes that formed and distorted from the edge of a burning joint.

Shaping smoke was little more than a parlor trick, but it was a mastery Amari -- who, besides all that, had only mastered inaction and sloth -- found necessary to balance him. Mastery of the impermanent, mastery of the vaporous, the ungraspable, and mastery of dictating its form. He lowered his jaw to inhale from that worn little blunt, and heaved in, before blowing out, lips in the circular, unnatural shape of an awkward first kiss. The sudden thrust of the tongue forward, like a rapier-lunge, pushing his smokey-breath outwards in the shape of a ring, and then again -- a second ring, smaller, faster.

The second ring of smoke barreled into the top of the first, and pushed its curved lines downwards in upon itself -- bending it, until the ring became a heart.

He smiled at his work, before rising and tossing the spent joint away into a tray that sat alone upon the mahogany floor.

Today was Thursday, which was the two days after his father had received his exorbitant paycheque, and thus also the day his father had funneled money into his bank account. It was also Thursday, the day of the week Amari had -- not coincidentally -- set aside for forcing himself into that great outdoors. For deriving some vitamin-energy from the sun, for deriving knowledge of current events from passer-bys via social osmosis, and for coming to terms with the fact that perhaps a man needed more company than just shapes of smoke. In theory, anyways.

He rose from the mahogany, like a wraith cloaked in a long-black tee and form-fitting pants of night-leather, and walked -- past the creaking door that denoted him as the denizen of room '609' (which remained unlocked for, quite frankly, nothing of worth resided within), past the bickering future-divorcee neighbors, the one-burger-away-from-triple-bypass-surgery landlady, the rusted gates of the tenement, sidewalks of longboard-hooligans and judgmental elders peering from behind their strollers. Fifteen minutes, and too many people, later, and he strode through the faux-futuristic doors of the plaza arcade, greeted by the strobing epilepsy red-blue lighting and 80's pop music decorum.

Amari sucked in a deep breath as he stared at the lights in their inelegant, inconsistent flashing.
For a moment, in the brief empty black spaces between each flicker, he thought he saw the Serpent.

He breathed out.
No. No, he didn't. Never that.

 

[Kuno]

Time was a cruel machination designed to betray her. So too was sleep, apparently.

Mortals did not sleep the same as gods. A god slumbered to restore energy, to pass the eons in thoughtful silence, to absolve themselves of wrongdoing. A human slept because their body forced them to. She was unused to being a slave of the flesh. And so she had slept, on through the night, and nearly the entire morning away. By the time her lithe frame rose from her bed, the man that had once slept beside her was gone. She turned her head, eyes searching, until she finally noticed a bird sitting by the open bedroom window. It was a brown-feathered peregrine falcon. It paused in its preening of itself to glance up at the young woman. For a moment, time still as the silence stretched between them.

The woman's lips pursed. "You should have woken me."

The falcon stared back, its own golden eyes seeming to dance with amusement. Frowning, she twisted away, hurriedly shoving on the clothes laid out on a nearby chair. Her movements were clumsy. She was not used to these arms, these legs, this absurdly long torso. The body was not her own; a human form woven together by magic, loaned to her by a friend. It would hopefully last long enough to obtain what she needed. Otherwise...Her eyes went to the mirror hanging on the wall. The foreign body occupied stared back at her. Just barely beneath the surface, another form shimmered with unnatural energy. Her true visage, as ancient and prevalent as time itself. Totally unlike the skin she wore now. She blinked, and the underlying image disappeared. If the others didn't look hard, they wouldn't see. She would be solely reliant on their lack of observation skills if she wanted her disguise to fly under the radar.

Finally dressed, the young woman assembled everything else she had. It was not much: her human I.D., her wallet, American currency, and a small notebook, filled with needed notations. She shoved everything into a small clutch and approached the bird perched on the windowsill. It eyed her warily. If it had been in a human form, she was sure it's brow would have been raised. Miraf settled across from it in the windowsill.

"Bird," Miraf began. The falcon fluttered its wings agitatedly, and she smiled. "Oh, don't be so sensitive. I only tease. I am leaving you, dear friend of mine. I must retrieve the boy."

With unnatural ability, the falcon lifted its wings up into its own version of a shrug. Rolling her eyes at it, Miraf started to stick her legs out of the window and climb down before a sharp jab at her side made her turn back.

"Hm?" She cocked her head to the side, eyes traveling from the open window to the bird. After a brief pause, her face fell slack with understanding. "Ah. You're right." Humans did not leave from windows ordinarily; she had already forgotten that. The falcon watched blankly as she exited out the front door. As the door closed shut, it's image wavered, then disappeared, leaving no trace of its presence ever being there. Miraf continued on her way.

Leaving from the building's stairwell was slower, but she made up for lost time in the briskness of her walk. Amari--the young boy she sought--was at the local arcade, which was only a few minute's walk from the building. It was all she could do not to run, for the urgency of her mission nipped angrily at her heels. She made one allowance to buy some candy from a nearby stall--promptly popping a lollipop in her mouth--before skipping back away down the sidewalk, the sugar of the lollipop putting an extra pep in her step. It was a welcome distraction from the human body she was forced to wear, for the gods only knew how much trouble it was starting to be. The skin clung to her like choking vines, slick and tight on her form. The body fidgeted; her hands, implacable, would not stop pulling at the fabric on her body. It was too close, too itchy, too present. She would have been better prancing about in all her naked glory, but the mortals did not take lightly to such a thing. Not in this manner. It was all for the mortal, she reminded herself. The hair, the body, the nose ornament, the clothes--all for him. Whatever it took to blend in. Whatever it took to put him at ease. She only wished it wasn't so damn uncomfortable. She resigned herself to one more petulant tug of her top before her hands stretched forward, pressing open the glass doors to the town's local arcade.

Entering the arcade was a jarring transition from the refreshing brightness of day into the suffocating, strobe-lit, clash of 80s carpeting and sci fi-themed decorations that the establishment dared to be. An unholy machination fed off the short attention spans of children and their little, grubby, dirty hands. Miraf's loathing of arcades was enough to make her want to leave altogether. Her revulsion pulling her lips down into a frown, she yanked out her lollipop, not wanting to taste its sweetness in such a grimy place. She was aware of how strange she looked; her attire was not appropriate for the slovenly livelihood so many gamers there had apparently decided to pursue. A few teenage boys gawked as she strode past. She eyed them too, before swiveling her head after seeing a sweaty pit stain. It served her right for looking. Her eyes flitted listlessly over the moving bodies, searching for a familiar mop of unruly brown hair.

Picking Amari out of the mixed crowd of shrieking children, gangly teenagers and adults was child's play. His back was to her, his attentions already devoted to the video game contraption he played on. Entirely oblivious to the dangers that lurked above. Miraf's eyes immediately snapped over to the snake curled about on top of the machine, its tongue flicking at the raw energy pouring from the boy. Miraf was surprised that only a naga had come; surely the others would come too, if the boy's Soul had grown to this point unhindered. It was only a matter of when. The snake demon would pose immediate problems; Apep's minions had a habit of running their mouths, and the goddess needed all the time she could get without unruly words hastening her tasks. At her brisk approach, the demon eyed her curiously. In this form, she was unrecognizable; still, it sensed power reserves stored in her. It turned its head towards her hungrily. Miraf ignored the demon and sidled up alongside the boy quietly. Her fingers tapped staccato on his shoulder.

"Excuse me, young man. Sir."

That sounded too formal. She tried again. "Hello? You there. Boy."

That sounded wrong too, in some way. But her patience did not allow for another attempt. Clearing her throat, Miraf fixed her face into what she presumed was relatively pleasant. In reality, her grin stretched far too wide, her eyes alight with intense interest. An unnerving sight, barely dimmed by her youthful beauty. The woman pressed in closer, before Amari could move away, her hand coming to fall lightly on his arm.

"I can not help but notice you play very well. It's a radical game, is it not? Very lit-t." Her tongue clicked haltingly on the slang words. She curved her full lips into a slight pout, adding, "I am no good with this one. Could you perhaps...show me? How to play?"

The lollipop came up once more as she inserted it into her mouth. She sucked on it leisurely before dragging it deliberately between her lips, slow as molasses dripping down bark. Just as she'd seen the American woman do on the television show. She had been told by a very reliable source that that would get the attention of humans; that, and many, many other things. Her eyes were round as saucers as they hung on the boy's face. Round, too, were the naga's eyes as it finally sensed who the individual was before it. It gasped out a rattling hiss.

Bassssstet?

Miraf's eyes flicked towards it. If only for a second.

 

[Aero Blue]

There was a time when Amari thought that peace best came from the silence, the quietest things, the blank expanse where nothing echoed, or the claustrophobic cage that held not even enough space for the dull-grey particulates of boredom. Peace from the white, grey shades, the darkness. It eventually became clear to him that the whites, greys, and blacks, in their supposed endless emptiness, were full, because those who resided within would, inevitably, be compelled to populate their space.

He'd always see so many things in them.

But the strobing lights of the arcade, flashing HIGH S- -OREs (the light of the nearest C having long expired) and GAME OVERs, and the people that were too rambunctious by far -- Amari had the suspicion that one may have spiked their fountain drink with vodkas and rums -- with their aimless, nonsensical yelling: they had already populated the emptiness, with their whirling maelstrom, their chaos, their meaningless babble. Enough that the serpents, the sistrum, the ankh, and the motes of glittering golden sand that floated through where it should not have, could not have, faded, or at least blended in with the flash of the 80's throwback paradise.

And all the noise, it was impersonal, never targeted at him. So, even amidst the zombie lights that tranced about the walls and ceilings, and the numbing voices of the fresh-out-of-school teenagers, he was well enough alone. Amari was free to stare at his pixel avatar on the screen, deftly weaving and dodging between dazzling techno-colored bullets and lasers from imagined, programmed foes -- which were endlessly preferable because they came from someone else's imagination, and not his imagination. His imagination. Because the things in his imagination. Were. Not. Real. They could not be. Never. He was, in this crowded place, alone. Alone.

Tap. tap. tap.

His head snapped to the interloper, expecting conflict that he was wholly unprepared for. What met his eyes was something else entirely. Something beautiful. Yes, she was caramel beautiful, and uncanny beautiful with the way her features stretched as if to accommodate some overly rehearsed social mean, fair-beautiful and lovely-beautiful. That was beside the point. She glowed, her aura like the same golden motes that- … and the serpent, the serpent stared at her in all her beauty too because-. No. No, no, no.

She was just a strange girl.
And he was just a strange boy. Who saw strange things. In the whites, the greys, the blacks, and in the fluorescent reds and light blues as well.
And she was licking her lollipop. The way the cool, unattainable girls did in the movies.

So he pretended the serpent wasn't there, even when it didn't fade away, and that the glow was just a trick of the light.

"Y-yeah, yeah! It is kind of rad, I guess. It's a lot of just, like, muscle memory though. A bit of skill, just to know what you're doing, and then… just repetition. I, ah, come here a lot guess." Amari struggled through the sentence like an asthmatic trying to catch their breath underwater.

The green laser caught his avatar with a violent burst, as GAME OVER bloomed upon the screen, like a bright amber against obsidian.

"I'm Amari. Who are you?"

He stammered, because he should have said: what's your name?

 

[Kuno]

Oh, how his soul shined! His power was still in its infancy, but the sheer potential held had the man alight from his hair follicles down to his toes. She could see it so clearly: a tiny ember resting deep within his body that emitted a pulsating glow in unison with his heartbeat. Colored saffron, for the deep sands of the Nile. Hope sparked in her with renewed fervor. She could do this, then. She could fulfill her duties to him. It would just require some more coaxing…

The taller man's demeanor was friendly. "Y-yeah, yeah! It is kind of rad, I guess. It's a lot of, just like, muscle memory though."

As if she honestly cared about that ridiculous game. Miraf nodded along to Amari's words, at times smiling encouragingly. He was remarkably nervous around her. Was it the piercing? Some said piercings and tattoos intimidated people, but her intent had only been to mirror modern day women. Thankfully, he was not so intimidated that he exited the conversation. When he asked her a question, the pretty young woman smiled again, happy that he was continuing to engage with her.

Until she realized what the question was.

Her smile melted away. "Huh? Who am I?"

For a moment, she forgot.

5,000 years of entitled prominence crashed through her mind like a storm. Her lips curled back, ready to spit foul fire upon this man, this fool who did not know the mighty Bast in all her glory--until she suddenly remembered. Remembered that she was not, in fact, Bast. That she did not even look like Bast. That she had hidden Bast away, somewhere deep within foreign pale skin and outlandish American clothes, a pariah of herself. Amari was supposed to know this body. This human who…She was…The woman gasped.

Ealayk! She'd forgotten her name!

"I am…"

The young woman's expression turned to that of perplexion. Frowning, she reached down and rustled in her knapsack for her identification card, making a small noise when she found it. She took a minute to squint at it's glossy finish.

"Miraf," She read slowly. Miraf, Miraf, Miraf. What a stupid thing to forget. Miraf glanced back up at the man wide-eyed, before breaking into a laugh.

"I am Miraf. Mi-raf. Like a giraffe. See?" She brandished her card in front of her face and tapped energetically on her picture. "That is me, baby boo."

There was the sound of shifting scales. Miraf? Not Bassstet?

She cringed. Her friend had been right: subtlety was never her strong point. Forget about pretenses; the minor god's continued parasitic presence irritated her to no end. Without warning, Miraf reached up and slapped the naga from atop of the video game contraption down onto the controls, inches away from Amari's hands. It writhed pathetically, a chorus of frantic pleas for its life spewing out of its mouth. Miraf shot her lanky companion a frustrated look.

"So...you were just going to let that snake demon keep feeding off you like that? Did you not notice it, lovely boy?"

 

[Aero Blue]

He was alone then, Amari was. Alone in the space, both crowded and empty, with Miraf-like-a-giraffe, the only other person amidst the strobing lights who, for all intents and purposes, mattered. Was this a poorly contrived meet-cute? Penned by a forty-something year old scriptwriter, masturbatorily engaging in random humors and overly quirky characters, some over-the-top mishmash spawned from a bleak and dreary virginal high school livelihood? The girl who couldn't remember her own name and the guy who's only virtues were weed-related.

This was not that.

The snake begged, which was not something Amari was accustomed to. Amari was accustomed to the leering, the unblinking staring, and the surveying. It had always seemed hungry as it took his measure, as if Amari's body was a mischief of rats, stacked together beneath his leather-black. And no matter how desperately he muttered to himself, or roared at the skies, to cast the snake away, it always remained. Here now, it was suffocating beneath Miraf's palm, as desperate as he had been.

And real. Real, real, real. Which Amari knew. Which Amari had known for the longest time.
no, no, no, no.
The girl, she was real too, even if no one said 'baby boo' like that. And the way she addressed him, the 'lovely boy', there was something odd about it. Leery. Maybe she was a snake too, just… in the most beautiful skin he had ever seen.

no, no, no, no.

"You can see them…" Amari rose and turned his back upon the girl-who-glowed, shoving through aisles of distracted (and now agitated) gamers to get away from her.

 

[Kuno]

Humans were so skittish nowadays. Was it not merely decades ago when a mortal would throw themselves at her feet from such an otherworldly display? Now they simply ran. The frail, flighty things they were.

"Huh" was all Miraf could say as Amari spun away from her. She was surprised that he chose this moment to run. She thought, at least, he would stick around for a moment more, at least until she finished her dealings with the snake demon. But he was a scared, nervous boy; Miraf had known that from the start. Still...

"Was it something I said?" She wondered out loud. Her view panned to the demon struggling beneath her hand. She addressed it then, giving the snake a hard shake. "Has this boy really never noticed you before?"

N-no, not… It was hard for it to speak under her unrelenting grip. Never.

Her fingers wrapped neatly around it's head.

"And you've been his parasite all these years?"

Crack!

His neck snapped like twigs underfoot. She watched as its body faded into the ether. Where remorse should have been, a hard kernel of contempt rested in her heart. She felt no love for the crawling masses of her enemies' pantheon. The naga's body would show up momentarily in Anubis realm, only to be sent back muelling and crying to its master. Maybe it's master would kill it again for losing its life to a seemingly normal girl. A strong, but otherwise normal girl. Miraf sniffed and turned on her heel.

Amari was as quick as he was tall. In the brief time she'd wasted, somehow he had squirmed out of sight, leaving a trail of disgruntled gamers in his wake. Miraf decided to go in the direction that he ran off in, but still; pursuit was made all the more challenging by the constant bodies interceding her path. Her eyes relentlessly scanned the throngs of people, looking around and past them as she ran. Past the machines, past the token drop, past the imbecile who jeered loudly at her bouncing breasts, past the--

There. Just ahead of her.

"Amari!" Her fingers brushed against the back of his jacket. In her second attempt to grab, she was able to dig in her nails and lock on, bringing his body to a staggering halt. Her eyes were molten fire.

"Now hold on. You saw what I saw. You saw it all, correct?" Miraf demanded. "You can't just run away. Don't you want to know? Aren't you at least a little bit curious about what I have to say?"

Be nice. Be gentle. The other's words resounded in her head with quiet authority. Sucking in a breath, the young woman leaned in closer. "Please," She pleaded, relaxing her grip on him.