My mountain.

I don’t like neighbors, I don’t want neighbors.  Bad enough the smilers lurk around.  If I wanted to be social, I’d live at the base with the family but I don’t.  I live up here and this is my mountain.  It’s a big desert, find somewhere else.  

Stay off my mountain.

Bearer of bad news.

illustrious-pixie:

“Snake, please just breathe,” she pleaded softly.  ”Just — just come back with us.  Come stay with us, we’ll see what we can find out and if we can get any kind of chance to get in for a funeral when it comes time but none of us want you up here alone tonight.  None of us want to be alone,” Pixie approached her friend almost like she was wielding some kind of weapon or was dangerous.  She had her hands up in front of her, flinching a little when Snake whirled on her and she saw the almost wild look in her eyes but she knew the look well.  It was the look of someone that was running through a full gamut of emotions and thoughts to fast to process them properly, someone held together by a whisper and a prayer.  

No one’s going to let us near there!  Look at us, we’re inky and wild and we’re the face of the enemy even though we don’t do a damned thing.  We talk to snakes and raise goats and dance but we’re the enemy because we’re the modern day bedouins that no one understands or cares to understand.  How many people come to see any of us anymore or ask us why you live in tents instead of homes and why you stand against violence?  No one, that’s how many!  They’d rather go to those crumbling buildings and drink that wannabe moonshine swill and have fights and have sex and be oh so rock and roll!  

Pixie had to admit, she had a point.  ”C’mon, then we’ll enjoy what we’ve got and we’ll remember and honor a friend and a loved one the way we do best and people will be sorely missing out on a better way of life.  Let’s just pack a bag and we’ll head back down.  I’m positive that Blood-n-Guts will let you scream and hit him until you’re totally spent and then he’ll be your human pillow for the night.  You know he loves you and he loved her too.  You don’t need to be up here in the dark and angry.”

She didn’t say a word, she had temporarily run out of them or rather they were jammed up at the tip of her tongue and she couldn’t figure out which ones to say first, if at all.  Instead she dropped her head, nodding and starting to grab things from around the little cabin.  She had little to no organization to her things, at least not to the naked eye but she knew what she was looking for or that’s what she was trying to tell herself even as she couldn’t seem to find two socks or pants.  Dahlia got up and started to gather clothes and at least set them out where Snake could find them, she knew better than to assume she knew what her friend would want to wear, especially if she was upset.  Pixie had ended up gathering  up the project that was clearly in the middle of completion, figuring that Snake would need something to keep her occupied instead of letting her worry too much over things well out of her control.  

It took them over half an hour before Snake finally shouldered her bag, clutching to the strap and picking at the loose threads with her nails alone as the others gathered up their things plus lanterns and flash lights.  They blew out lights in their wake, not wanting to leave the cabin open to invitation while no one was there to keep tabs on it.  

Traveling down the ridge in the dark was tricky but gravity was more than willing to help out.  Once they had passed the halfway point, there were family members with flash lights to help light the rest of the way down and around the more jagged rocks.  It was reassuring to be on solid ground instead of something that could potentially crumble under foot the entire time.  

Bearer of bad news.

illustrious-pixie:

“Esther …” she trailed off, swallowing against the lump that formed in her throat even at the name.  Dahlia figured it out before Snake, her eyes going wide and both hands clapping over her mouth as she gasped.  It was all Pixie could do to nod, shifting her weight from foot to foot as she looked down at the floor.  It had sand and pebbles scattered across the cement surface that crunched under the soles of her boots, but there were also beads and various trinkets from different projects Snake had been working on.  She never did use a desk, she just took over a room and the entire floor as her own.

“S’why she didn’t answer,” she mumbled.  She had to blink against the sting of threatening tears even as the peripherals of her vision started to warp and blur. 

“What about Esther?” Snake asked without even thinking about what Pixie could’ve meant, so fixated on waiting for an answer that she all but missed Dahlia’s reaction.  At least she did until her friend hissed the obvious to her — Esther died, numb nut — and she stood quickly.  ”What?!”

The same anger that had been present from being made to worry all day carried over into anger towards what happened and the fact that it took someone from her.  She started to pace again, occasionally stuttering a step as she kicked something out of her way and one time it was one of the transmitters that clattered across the floor to rest against the base of the wall.  Her hands rubbed together and then over her face and finally tangling back in the mess of ringlet curls that were left untamed around her head.  Some of the kohl around her eyes ended up smeared and smudged across her cheek in the process.

“She never hurt anyone!  She never did anything to anyone!  She just … lived!  The whole family!  They didn’t fight in the war, they didn’t leave when people were abandoning ship!  They volunteer, they support local endeavors and they give us a place whenever we need it or can take advantage of it.  They’re nice people, they’re good people and she couldn’t help that she was born with a slightly different brain, she didn’t custom order her birth or have any control over it.  She couldn’t help that she needed those pills and it isn’t her family’s fault that they couldn’t afford the designer pills instead of the generics,” the words were coming out a mile a minute with little to no room for breaths.  Her eyes rarely rested on anything, her hands had come loose from her hand and were gesturing emphatically as she spoke.

Bearer of bad news.

illustrious-pixie:

It was a long climb up the ridge to the old rangers station that Snake had converted into her home.  It was definitely dangerous in the quickly fading light with the winds whipping up as a storm front tried to take shape, but Pixie did make it with only minor scrapes on her hands and a few new scuffs on her well loved boots.  At least Snake left out lanterns to light the way to her home when she had or was expecting company — especially after a few nasty falls from people that weren’t familiar with the paths in the dark.  

She knocked twice even as she pushed the door open, flinching a little as it creaked against the silence that was hanging heavy in the tiny abode.  If Dahlia and Snake hadn’t been in plain sight, Pixie would’ve assumed they were out on the ledge and taking in the view but no, they had been waiting for any kind of news.  The transmitters set on the floor between them was more than enough proof for it.  

“So, Marvelous Miss is okay.  I caved in and asked Delta to look into it for us,” might as well cut to the point.  Snake probably needed a reason to take an actual breath for the first time all day.

Snake had been pacing and fretting long before Dahlia showed up, then she continued to pace and fret after her friend arrived.  Sure, there had been the offer of booze and food and even fresh milk but she didn’t want any of it.  The sight and thought of eating while her friend was unaccounted for was just wrong in her book.  When night fell and still there was no answer from anyone, she was thoroughly starting to believe and fear the worst.  Dahlia ran out of reassuring words and actions and instead the two of them settled into a solemn silence, often jumping at the crackle and pops that filtered through the transmitters on the ground.

Then, of course, nearly jumping out of her skin when there was a knock at the door.  She rarely ever had visitors outside of the family but even then, they were fairly rare.  She did relax when she recognized Pixie’s face and voice and even more so when she came bearing news that their friend was alive and well.

“I’m going to beat her around the ears for not answering me then!  She had me terrified!  She always goes on about being worried about me out here on my own and how no one will ever notice that I’m gone until far, far too late and here she goes and pulls my own stunt against me and I’m supposed to take — why do you look sick?” she cut off the second she realized her friend had a gaunt expression with her jaw set and her neck tense.  

Dahlia, myself and the Marvelous Miss.  She stayed in the city and has a normal life and now we can’t reach her or anyone that knows her and we don’t know what’s happened.  

Nononono

illustrious-pixie:

desertdahlia:

snakecharmah:

illustrious-pixie:

Snake.  Breathe, for the love of all things shiny, please just breathe and try to calm down.  We’re doing the best we can and soon as we hear anything, we’ll let you know.  Do you want someone to come stay with you?

Dahlia.  Please send Dahlia.  She speaks Snake.

I’m on my way hun.  Deep breaths or find a snake to talk to, I’ll be up there as fast as I can get there.  I’ll bring some treats too.  

There you go, she’s grabbing things now to head up there.  I promise you, you’ll be the first to know if we hear anything about anyone.  Especially the Marvelous Miss.  

Okay, right.  Breathing.  I can do that, I can breathe.  Breathing is good.  

Nononono

illustrious-pixie:

Snake.  Breathe, for the love of all things shiny, please just breathe and try to calm down.  We’re doing the best we can and soon as we hear anything, we’ll let you know.  Do you want someone to come stay with you?

Dahlia.  Please send Dahlia.  She speaks Snake.

Nononono

People are dying, people are always dying.  Why do people think causing death solves problems?  If there should be widespread death, a plague will pop up, don’t make one.  Don’t force it.  The universe sorts itself out.  Survival of the fittest, natural selection, Darwinism and Murphy’s Law.  They handle it but no one needs to make a plague, no one needs to kill innocent people for sport or fun or whatever reasoning they might have.  I have friends in there, I had friends?  I hope I have friends, I should have friends.  I love them dearly.  I miss them so, I was hoping to go see them soon and now I’m not allowed near that area and I can’t get ahold of anyone and Pixie can’t get ahold of anyone or Dahlia or Ladylove or Lapis or anyone.  Oh god, what if I don’t have friends?  What if they’re gone?  What if no one has noticed and they’re alone and scared and hurt and oh god.  Someone needs to help them and I’m stuck on this stupid mountain and I can’t do anything and I can see everything but nothing and all people are doing is hate mongering and planning more death to handle death.  Death + death = death, not life.  No one will come back, nothing will be fixed, it’ll keep going and going and going and going and going.  It’ll never stop, nothing will be accomplished but political genocide and those that survive won’t be equipped to run the world and shouldn’t run the world.  Me alone on the mountain left as a survivor?  I’m no one that should be carrying on the world and this could kill people the world needs and people the world needs could be killed in return.

Someone please find my friends, someone let me know if they’re okay or if they’re gone or what’s going on.  Someone please do something worth half a damn for once.  

Damn the sun

I think it does bake brains.  Or at least help them pickle or something like that.  Remember to wear hats or find shade or burrow under ground and hide there.  Too much sun is bad for your brain and your skin but you need your brain more.