"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
what will your mummy sing when they find your body?
When you forget that this was the coming a new kind of storm, you can perhaps remember what you are looking for when you see a friendly face. You notice her—white, perfect porcelain body cut like hard marble against the landscape. You wonder; you feel something, but it is all a lie. It is inception. Nothing is real. Nothing… Epithet moves with grace, her crystalline wings fluttering with light next to her body, attached to her by nothing more than the air that washes over them in flight. No one can see the way she moves with sadness—she would not allow that. The cracks in the armor, that perfect casting. Epithet smiles a sad smile, covering her face as she turns away from you, and moves in the opposite direction. Sad Clown knows all… And while she considers her path, she considers more immediately on what she should have for dinner. Her stomach, like her soul, is empty, and she growls allowed for some vegetation. Barley, Alfalfa. Oatmeal? Peas porrage hot, peas porrage cold. Sad clown want food, growing old. Cracked porcelain, cracked armor. They must not be allowed to see. Conceal, don’t feel. Don’t let it show. Happy Clown, Sad Clown. Comedy; Tragedy? Epithet knows nothing. Inside her muddled head is just mud, mud, mud. The clockwork and gears whirring, whirring, whirring. She can’t make sense of it; can’t make sense of it. And yet, this is the coming of a new day. She can see over the horizon. Yes, new day it is. Beqanna, the meadow. Her daughter was around somewhere; did she leave? Yes, yes I think she did. Epithet jerks and moves with grace (not really—she stumbles drunk) and flaps her wings (dragging through the mud). She’s looking for something. Looking, Looking. Will she find it? She is alone, broken. Sad. Sad, happy, happy sad. Looking for friends. Looking for lovers. Beautiful day (mud). Who will join her? Is there anyone there? Come out, come out, wherever you are!
“Pleased to meet you, too, log lady!” She had beamed back then, all smiles and joy. It never occured to her to question how Epithet might have known her name. Maybe she just looked like a Wonka. She had always felt very Wonka-y, just like Varuca seemed very Varuca-y and Mother was very Motherly—why else would she have all of those children? She was so nice that stallions kept coming back just to give her more and more. Ahem. Her conversation with Epithet went much the same as all the others did. They exchanged names, pleasantries, said a few kind words that Spink and Venge would rave about in their posts for the remainder of their lives—
“After all this time?”
“Always,” said Snape.
And then they parted ways.
The years went on.
Wonka grew up a little awkward, but none worse for the wear. She wasn’t ugly or anything, no sir. Just sort of average. Though her life was plagued with the occasional accident and/or ’incident’ that tended to drive everyone off because she was clearly freaking cursed or something—she’d fallen into snakepits, been repeatedly swarmed by robins, caught malaria, savagely attacked by a group of squirrels and just last summer a school of angry goldfish had tried to drown her in a pond. After the earthquakes, she was certain she had angered Mother Nature herself and had banished herself to the Shadow Realm.
But maybe... maybe.
She poked her head out of a blueberry bush, wild-eyed and dirty with stained lips and teeth.
Nothing happened.
And so she took a few steps forward, then another, and another.
Nothing.
Burp!
“Oh, excuse me,” she apologized to no one—at least, that was what she thought. Force of habit, you see. But lo and behold there was a mare, winged and sad-looking, and Wonka frowned. “Is something the matter?” She cocked her head.
The frogs are back! Let all mankind know that the frog mafia is back, and its king is behind it. All bow down before the Goblin king! King Froggy scared of the dark; King Frog going along for a lark…
The stars…Epithet was naming them. One by one, they surrendered to her. She called them by name, and played with them as if they were her children, dancing about like a marionette upon an old wooden stage. Moving—moving, moving. Don’t get tangled, child.
I won’t mummy.
The years had not been kind—not they had not, precious. Beautiful lines of a sad clown painting faces on a dumpster. Dumpster diving. Trash. Just throw it all out. Nothing good; nothing doing.
Leola off, gone a’ visitin’. Never coming back. She’s gone—gone, gone. Same as Akhil. They always leave. Always.
Unlike Snape.
He just dies.
And then, a bush speaks. A blue bush, with blueberries growing from it. And then a blue thing speaks from behind it. Haunted Haunted.“BOO!” Says the white thing… says Epithet. Happy clown face. Somebody cares.
Seeing the blue bush talk, she immediately searches for the frog. She wants to spank something. Spank. Spankity spank.
Spank.
“Alone…” says Epithet, her wings drooping and turning blue with all the emotion that she(they) felt. Sad clown. Who cares about Epithet?
