06-19-2015, 10:55 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-19-2015, 11:48 PM by Strangelet.)
STRANGELET
nocturnal and quark's imaginary girl
Strange had gotten herself lost in the fireflies. A whole swarm of them, though she couldn’t remember if fireflies were supposed to swarm or not. Didn’t matter, because these ones had, flickering rainbow lights with whispering voices like dry rustling autumn leaves. They’d swept her away somehow, and it felt like maybe she’d been lost for a long time.
Didn’t matter, though. Eventually, she found her way back to her body. And because of her gift or because of Beqanna magic or because it hadn’t been nearly as long as it had felt, she was still little girl Strangelet, all fuzzy black baby fuzz and bright blue eyes, and her extra special yellow crescent moon on her right side that was part of both of her moms, Momma Sol’s sunshine yellow and Momma Luna’s moon shape stamped right on her body, sewn into her skin and always with her. Just like they were. Even when they were far away, like now.
Maybe soon would be a good time to go visit them. But for now, her body felt all itchy and tingly like it did when she spent too much time away from it, so probably she should stay here for a little so her body remembered what it felt like to be inhabited again and stopped feeling like it was waking up with all the little prickles and tingles and shivers that almost hurt but not quite.
Oh, right. Eyes. Those were things. Strange opened hers, cobalt blue and often focused on things that weren’t physically present, because physical was so arbitrary, but the abundant wild green that exploded everywhere her open eyes rested told her she was in the jungle that had been home for as long as she could remember, even if it was really only home because of Momma Sol. Who wasn’t here anymore. Huh. Yeah, that anchor that had made the Jungle the place she always came back to was gone, and now the land around her was just land. Land she knew, land her feet could navigate even though her eyes got confused sometimes, but still just land.
Huh. No anchor. It made everything…drifty. Drafty. A little bit dizzy, but only because it was…disorienting, not having that solid feeling of home here. She wasn’t even quite sure where home usually was now, the waterfall and the graveyard. No, wait, she could still feel NocNoc’s bones, and Momma Luna’s too, if she looked hard enough. Okay. Good. Good.
Oh, hello. More fireflies, dancing in the air, beckoning her forward. Not toward the past and the shiny black dragon bones of the dead. Not this time. No, there was a girl somewhere, a girl surrounded by still more fireflies. A girl maybe she was supposed to meet. Or maybe not supposed to so much as could. Could was better. Could was less weight, less clinging and pushing and dragging and more exciting and fun. Could. So she followed the fireflies who led her to meet a new friend. And since her feet knew the shape of the Jungle without her eyes having to notice it, she didn’t even trip as she wandered through the dense green, distracted by the pulse of life in every plant and the sparkle in the air when she passed spirits drifting through the trees and the trail of prey where that jaguar had dragged her dinner across Strange’s path and –
“Oh!” And that swarm of fireflies, with a girl at the center. “Hello there! I’m Strange.”
Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination
living there you'll be free if you truly wish to be.
 Oh look, oh my star is fading She is alone, but she is never alone. Not now, not with the voices that swirl in her head. Today, they're not talking with her or to her, so much as around her. They're having a conversation in her head, and she's just the bystander. The awkward fifth wheel.
"No, clearly Carnage could've been defeated by Swish. He was the greatest light king ever." the voice is definitive, dismissive of any complaints. It's one of her friends, one of the innumerable dead babies born (or not) in Beqanna throughout the years. This one is one of the older ones. It won't be long, she figures, until there are even newer ones. They've already started to trickle in as it gets closer to birthing season, as their souls leave their little bodies and their mothers stand hollow, aware or unaware.
She's thought about trying to find them, but she imagines they might not take so kindly to what Wrynn has to offer. No one wants to hear from a baby when they've just lost their baby.
"No, Carnage isn't defeatable. He's absolutely all powerful. I know, I saw him." another voice pipes up, weighing in on the argument. Wrynn doesn't comment on the fact they all know: that Carnage created their little afterlife, broke off their little erstwhile chunk of beach. And that Carnage had given them their current little argument platform, Wrynn's mind, as a reward for her role in it.
Wrynn sighs as they bicker inside her brain. She doesn't mind in the slightest. She just hopes that they enjoy it a little bit. It had broken her heart that she hadn't been able to bring any of them back with her, back from the otherworld, the many-worlds, wherever they'd been. She would have given anything to bring them with her, even for a little bit. To give them a taste of what life is, to see the sky, to touch the grass.
But it was not meant to be, and so she tries to let them experience these things within her, through her, letting her be the conduit. She'd let them fully possess her if she could, but it seems she can't (although not for lack of trying).
And so she sits in the jungle, letting the sounds of the deep jungle wash over her and the voices that argue like only children can, talking about things they think are mythical, debating what to them is just a fairy story. It is damp and hot here, even in the middle of the winter, and the vines are knit so thick that it seems dark although (she thinks) it's actually daytime.
And so it is that she is this way when Strangelet finds her. She stands alone, in a clearing, listening to the racket in her mind when "oh" – Strange's exclamation startles her, although she doesn't exclaim. Interested in what is going on, the voices in her head go suddenly quiet. She is quick to gather herself up, listening with a sweet, serene expression that turns to confusion as the girl speaks again.
"Strange? Why do you say that? I don't think you're strange." she says, completely misunderstanding the meaning of what her new friend has said. "Or, really, I think we're all strange."
The voices come back then, clamoring so loudly that Wrynn can only barely pick out pieces of what they say. But one thing seems incredibly clear: they know this girl, and they like her. Wrynn's eyes go wide, shifting strange rainbow colors, like a cloud alight with rainbow rather than lightning. "You know them too!" she almost squeals in excitement. Her voice is normally so gentle; she's never felt this happy, not ever. She's grinning. "You know my friends!"
STRANGELET
nocturnal and quark's imaginary girl
Strange cocked her head at the girl surrounded by a swarm of fireflies, her brow furrowing as the sort of stranger rejected her name. “Sure I am,” she said, perplexed. “It’s what my mommas and my brothers and my sisters call me. Or well, part of it. My favorite part. The rest is little and baby, and Strange is shorter and fits my shape and my head and my me-ness better than Strangelet, which is longer and more tongue-trippy and less fun to say. Though I guess the jl sound in the middle is kind of fun to wrap my mouth around. Jl. Jl.” She tried it a few times, focusing on the feeling in her mouth and nodding slowly. “Still. Strange is better. And I’ve never met another Strange, so I don’t think everyone is. I’ve met lots of people with lots of names, and I’m the only me I’ve found.”
The girl’s eyes lit up with rainbows as she talked about her friends, which was really fun to watch and also kind of reminded her of the fireskin lady, the sister with the moving tattoos that were the fire her name implied. “You mean the fireflies? Sure, ‘course I know them! We were all fireflies once, it’s just most people forget. You remember? Oh, NocNoc is gonna be so excited!” She sent a buzz of giddy along the cord that bound him to her and her to him, letting him know he should come as fast as he could because fun things were happening! “What’s your name, new friend? And hello to all your firefly friends too! I know some of them. Wait,” she said, looking harder as she recognized the shape or the color or the texture of one of the ties, and it fit too well with the eyes and the fireskin and “Are you maybe a sister of Rain?”
There was more there, more that was familiar and aching with loss and sorrow that she knew, that she felt because it was her Momma’s sorrow over NocNoc, and sorrow she had shared with Grammy Kang’roo. This one knew Kora, too. The first Kora, the one who had tried to come into the world through Grammy Kang’roo’s injured body and couldn’t grow long enough to survive on her own. The Kora Momma had tried so hard to save. It would make Momma happy to know—well. To know she was okay. But that was for later.
Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination
living there you'll be free if you truly wish to be.
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