Headaches! Yay! (fuuuu) Too little sleep, too little eats, too few breaks, and one demanding & easily insulted person at the house meant Keri had a headache and needed a nap.
So I kissed the kid, and patted the spirit, and waved “fuck all” to the world and laid down for a nap.
“Where are you going?” Snake had grabbed me by the arm and was pulling me back towards the entrance.
“No. No-no-no-no-no-fuck-you-no. I need sleep. Deep sleep. Not this shallow, just enough to rest the body, but still be taxed because mental & spiritual stress. SLEEP!” I wrenched my arm free and pointed to the very inviting pallet. “Sleep, motherfucker! Let me have it!”
He laughed in a friendly way, so I continued my advancement to the pallet. His laughter cut off suddenly as he softly spoke, “No.”. He grabbed my arm again and pulled me backwards sharply so I fell, caught me before I recovered my senses, and carried my temper tantrum having ass outside with ease. And with chuckles. Lots of chuckles.
“If you go to deeper sleep as you are, you’ll wake up with an even worse headache. You need to work this stress off a different way than you’re used to.” He deposited me by the fire. “Why do you tease me about Quetzalcoatl?” As he asked, he changed into the brilliant green feathered regalia that prompted the teasing in the first place. And grinned.
Okay, you bastard, I’ll play along.
“Because you’re a snake, and you like long green feathers, and sometimes you do that feathered skull thing.” He suddenly disappeared from view, melting into the darkness around the fire. I turned around looking for him, only to turn face to face with a giant bleached white snake skull surrounded by fans of feathers. His mythic body, fully serpentine and fleshed, trailed out behind the feathers into the darkness beyond.
“Like this?”
I laughed to see him. He doesn’t frighten me in that aspect anymore. I stroked the smooth dry bones of his skull. “Yea. Like that.”
“Have you ever wondered why I take this aspect? Of all the serpent mythos you know, and you know more than you allow yourself to admit… Why would I choose this one when interacting with you?”
Hmm. Good question. I’ve never given his forms much thought. He moves from shape to shape so easily, altering the appearance and confusing onlookers, but still remaining the Snake I know and cherish. I know form follows function, but do I have enough information to infer the function from the form?
“How’s your headache now?” I blink at his question. Headache? Oh yea, I did have a headache. I still do, but his questions took my focus away from the pain and it lessened.
“Lesser. But still enough to slow me down if I wake up now.”
The feathers close around the skull like a flower closing for the night. As the feathers reopen, Snake stands before me bipedal, in his green feathered regalia. To see so many feathers on him always makes me smile. Oh Vanity!
He stands beside me, opposite the fire. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Well, you going to dance, or what?”
“Did you lose reason when you defleshed your head? I can’t do any dancing with this pain! I’m too much into the dream, and will feel every jostle and jump!”
“Then, don’t jostle. And don’t jump. Fledge, Raven. It’s time to teach you a new dance.” His voice was humorous. His face was serious.
I fledged as best I could. The act of doing so made the pain spike. All I could accomplish was a head full of feathers, and a cloak that looked like giant raven wings. The cloak was fastened to my human wrists. He nodded in approval. This was enough.
“No drums, please. The sound…”
“No. No drums. No yelling. Probably no vocalizations at all. This is all about the movements. No jumping. No leaping. Well, not at first anyway.” He smiled, but again his face was serious.
“Okay. What do I do?”
“Put one foot in front of the other.”
“Which direction around the fire?”
“Which direction do you want? Simple things first. Lay the foundation. Then build. No use worrying about the corner decorations when the ground has not even been leveled.”
So I started, by putting one foot in front of the other. Snake matched me, step for step, but always keeping himself placed so the fire was between me and him.
“Okay, what’s with your placement?”
“Hmm?”
“Don’t ‘Hmm’ me, you’re making sure to stay in my shadow from the fire.”
He looks at me with steady eye. “You’re in a vulnerable state. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I’m guarding you. You have naught to worry about the fire because [reasons]. And with me here, you have naught to worry about the darkness.” I gave him a bit of stink-eye. The fire without our shared lair is one of the last places I would consider being attacked because [reasons].
“You’re teaching me this now because I’m going to have to do this for someone else, some place else.” He allowed himself the indulgence of a satisfied smile.
“Everything you have learned, are learning, and will learn, is for someone else, some place else, some other time. But first, you have to learn it.” He gestured forward again. I nodded, accepted his words without taking the phrases apart, and began placing one foot in front of the other again.
The dance unfolded, foundational steps laid, the turns and twists came easier than I thought because of them. They turned my awareness to the side, and twisted my conscious (read: writing) memory.
At one point I remember Snake being completely opposite the fire from me. Instead of us acting in conjunction, we were in opposition. This too, was an intentional act.
The dance ended. As my feet came to a gentle stop, my awareness returned to myself. Snake was sitting at the stone bench near the lair’s entrance, watching me. I was dancing alone, but was carrying something. I held a snake skull altered to be worn as a headdress, and a capelet made from stitched shed snake skin. I looked at what I was holding while fully fledged in confusion.
“Hey, uh… I think you dropped something.”
His chuckles at my confusion earned him a wrinkled up face for an answer. “No. I didn’t.”
“But… um…” I raised a winged arm. “Raven.”
“Yes. Raven. As you need to be for now.”
Oh for fuck’s sake. Just when I’ve gotten comfortable being human. “The boneyard. The ravens there. What the fuck?”
He laughed outright. “Weaver Many-Named, you really didn’t think you only had one inhuman aspect to wear, did you? By the way, how’s your headache?”
I was about to launch into a diatribe against him confusing me with identities and half-remembered myths when I realized I didn’t have a headache. It was completely gone. Danced into the earth and dealt with.
He draped the shed skin capelet over my shoulders, and loosely placed the snake skull headdress on my head. “Do you accept?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand. You only have to accept.”
I muttered a bit in expected bitching. Then surrendered to what felt right to say, and do. “I accept.” The snake headdress & capelet dissolved into me, leaving me standing fully fledged before Snake with no marks to designate my decision.
“When you need them, you’ll have them. When you don’t, you won’t. So don’t expect to play around with them.” I harrumphed slightly in disappointment. More laughter from Snake, this time a deep warm sound. “It’s time for you to wake up. Don’t forget to eat dinner.”
I woke up, feeling as if the headache never occurred and ravenously hungry. Dter had cooked dinner for me already and the bowl was waiting for me. I ate well, complimented her on her improving skills (yum!), and considered what new adventures am I going to be embroiled in.
This time.