Tuna Salad Sonnet
Whooooooooo catharsis/improv KtH fic/idea I had a couple days ago. xD Obviously not proofread, purposely confusing/vague.
Nakoma doesn't like houses, doesn't like the man with the pink hair, and doesn't like where this is going. She's not sure what to think of the girl with the pale daisy hair in the white dress, but she doesn't get much time to before the man says something, smooth as tortoise skin and not nearly as trustworthy.
The man flicks his wrist and night falls in a corner of the room. Nakoma doesn't like that swirling whirlpool of darkness one bit. She likes it even less when the man snaps his fingers and the white demons tear her from Pocahontas's side and drag her towards the void.
Nakoma struggles and tries her best to plant her feet on the spirit-damned floorboards. If only the settlers had bare floors... She could call up the spirits that knew she was in danger, call them up into her bones and muscles and fight her way out of this.
But she can't.
She hears Pocahontas shout and Nakoma manages to turn her head to see what's happening. The pale daisy girl has stood up now, saying the word 'Mar-loo-sha' as her friend-sister is held back by more of the man's creatures.
Nakoma swears at him, dragging up the foulest words she knows in both the settler's and her own language and throwing them at him with all she has. One of the demons scratch her or punch her and the world runs together like water. And then she is within the darkness.
---
The next thing Nakoma is aware of are spirits. They whisper very quietly beneath the earth's surface.
Which leads her to the next thing she is aware of. There is earth beneath her now, not the changing blue-green place she had crawled out of.
She feels sick. Her stomach lurches, but doesn't give in.
Wherever she is, the air is thick with heat.
The spirits are still whispering, but she doesn't recognize any of their voices. She can't hear Tamaya the opossum or Isi the fawn or Feldspar or...
All the same, the spirits whisper beneath her, concerned and recognizing that her spirit can hear theirs, mesh with them. But oh, she feels sick and the air in her lungs is too thick.
Her nails dig into a tree. She feels too sick to know where she is beyond that there are trees. Trees are nice. Trees are good. Trees are safe. She tries to climb up it, but slips and falls and hits something on a rock. Her knee. Damn. She needs her knee to run from white creatures.
She doesn't know how much time passes, her head disoriented from the loss of her old ground-whispers and the concern of her new ones. She knows from the coolness in the soil that it is nighttime or very close to it when she finds another tree that is willing to protect.
She can't climb up it, but the earth slips down beneath the roots into a hollow beneath. She lets the mud slip her down the slope and she recalls Feldspar the fox and his family, how they curl beneath the ground to stay warm.
---
She wakes up when something that looks like a bobcat presses a paw to her face.
She decides almost immediately to follow it. A creature that looks like a smaller, golden bobcat? Surely it is a sign.
She walks on wobbly legs after the spot of gold amongst the green sunshine, which stops and waits for her when she stumbles. Nakoma feels the dried mud on her legs and arms crack at the seams and peel like sick tree bark. It's crusted and dried in spikes in her hair and masked half her face.
When she finally falls, in a clearing of tall skinny yellow totem poles that haven't been carved yet, she sees a cloth the colour of dark mountain-laurel and someone shouts and speaks and voices cloud her ears. She tries to speak or answer their questions, but her stomach lurches suddenly and her skin flashes with unpleasant heat. She concentrates on not throwing up and what seems like hours later, someone touches her face.
"Nakoma."
Lexaeus? Her eyelids flicker.
Oh. Good, then. She had died and this was the Spirit World, his home. Wonderful. Swell.
It was rather nice seeing him again, though. He was rather handsome. She should tell him that. What? Tell him the first or the second thing...?
"Wingapo," she decides, falling into the hot pull of fevered sleep.
Nakoma doesn't like houses, doesn't like the man with the pink hair, and doesn't like where this is going. She's not sure what to think of the girl with the pale daisy hair in the white dress, but she doesn't get much time to before the man says something, smooth as tortoise skin and not nearly as trustworthy.
The man flicks his wrist and night falls in a corner of the room. Nakoma doesn't like that swirling whirlpool of darkness one bit. She likes it even less when the man snaps his fingers and the white demons tear her from Pocahontas's side and drag her towards the void.
Nakoma struggles and tries her best to plant her feet on the spirit-damned floorboards. If only the settlers had bare floors... She could call up the spirits that knew she was in danger, call them up into her bones and muscles and fight her way out of this.
But she can't.
She hears Pocahontas shout and Nakoma manages to turn her head to see what's happening. The pale daisy girl has stood up now, saying the word 'Mar-loo-sha' as her friend-sister is held back by more of the man's creatures.
Nakoma swears at him, dragging up the foulest words she knows in both the settler's and her own language and throwing them at him with all she has. One of the demons scratch her or punch her and the world runs together like water. And then she is within the darkness.
---
The next thing Nakoma is aware of are spirits. They whisper very quietly beneath the earth's surface.
Which leads her to the next thing she is aware of. There is earth beneath her now, not the changing blue-green place she had crawled out of.
She feels sick. Her stomach lurches, but doesn't give in.
Wherever she is, the air is thick with heat.
The spirits are still whispering, but she doesn't recognize any of their voices. She can't hear Tamaya the opossum or Isi the fawn or Feldspar or...
All the same, the spirits whisper beneath her, concerned and recognizing that her spirit can hear theirs, mesh with them. But oh, she feels sick and the air in her lungs is too thick.
Her nails dig into a tree. She feels too sick to know where she is beyond that there are trees. Trees are nice. Trees are good. Trees are safe. She tries to climb up it, but slips and falls and hits something on a rock. Her knee. Damn. She needs her knee to run from white creatures.
She doesn't know how much time passes, her head disoriented from the loss of her old ground-whispers and the concern of her new ones. She knows from the coolness in the soil that it is nighttime or very close to it when she finds another tree that is willing to protect.
She can't climb up it, but the earth slips down beneath the roots into a hollow beneath. She lets the mud slip her down the slope and she recalls Feldspar the fox and his family, how they curl beneath the ground to stay warm.
---
She wakes up when something that looks like a bobcat presses a paw to her face.
She decides almost immediately to follow it. A creature that looks like a smaller, golden bobcat? Surely it is a sign.
She walks on wobbly legs after the spot of gold amongst the green sunshine, which stops and waits for her when she stumbles. Nakoma feels the dried mud on her legs and arms crack at the seams and peel like sick tree bark. It's crusted and dried in spikes in her hair and masked half her face.
When she finally falls, in a clearing of tall skinny yellow totem poles that haven't been carved yet, she sees a cloth the colour of dark mountain-laurel and someone shouts and speaks and voices cloud her ears. She tries to speak or answer their questions, but her stomach lurches suddenly and her skin flashes with unpleasant heat. She concentrates on not throwing up and what seems like hours later, someone touches her face.
"Nakoma."
Lexaeus? Her eyelids flicker.
Oh. Good, then. She had died and this was the Spirit World, his home. Wonderful. Swell.
It was rather nice seeing him again, though. He was rather handsome. She should tell him that. What? Tell him the first or the second thing...?
"Wingapo," she decides, falling into the hot pull of fevered sleep.
