Neglect

Suki

I'm sorry I have been neglecting you, my dear little blog (not as much as Regina is). There is a lot of distracting things in the summer time. I'm sure you understand. You are off having adventures with all the people reading you.

Anyway, the primary reason I didn't write any blogs these last few days was a broken swamp cooler. My laptop puts out a lot of heat; with another computer in the room, the combined heat is a little sickening, plus I start sweating like a whore in church.

Thankfully, the swamp cooler has been repaired and not a moment too soon. It was getting dire up in here; taking two showers a day was really wrecking havoc on my hair, puffiness wise. It wasn't cute.

It's funny how in the summer I long for the rainy, overcast days of fall and winter. But when winter rolls around all I can do is bitch about the humidity and what it does to my hair ("WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER STRAIGHTENING IT!!!??"). I go through my rebellious phase where I where my hair in a ponytail everyday or hide it under this really hilarious ski hat (complete with little tie tassels and a pom-pom on the top); eventually I chop it all off. And then I wish it was long about a week later.

And somewhere around June, I start the cycle all over again. I tease, I iron, I heat...all verbs that imply stressing. I neglect my hair purposefully until it's so lifeless and beaten down, I have to cut off about a foot of it. And I don't even donate it to those bald cancer kids.

I'm neglectful hair...possessor? owner? Whatever. I am bad to my hair. One day, I will wake up, and my hair will have all it's possessions packed in a little bag tied to a stick and it will say "We both know this isn't working out anymore," and it will walk out on me. Forever. And I'll have to wear a wig, like that over-botoxed piece of jerky from "The Real Housewives of Atlanta."

Yikes.

Another Short

By Suki

I've been on a writing spree lately due to the large amount of positive feedback I've been receiving about Halcyon. This is a short story I wrote last night from the first person perspective. The story picks up where the last section ends, give or take a few events. I welcome any feedback you have to give on, positive or negative. Thanks for reading and enjoy.

Waking Up

Aramia

We've been floating out here in the ether between worlds for nearly a millennia, though it's hard to say how long anything lasts here. My vessel is at peace here, so I too am washed with the feeling of contentment.
As we float above the world, I can look down and watch the inhabitants of our island go about their lives. They look the same as they did when we left, but Halcyon has changed because of them. There are several roads that girdle the land and large barriers that separate the forests from the towns. They've found a way to manipulate their world to work for them in a way we could never have imagined.
I urge my vessel to open her eyes and look down with me at our home, but she doesn't respond. This place is difficult for her to stay awake in, but I think she doesn't really want to try either. She wants to stay in her dreams, remembering back to the days when the world belonged to us.
The currents around us were calm and I settled down on my belly, letting my tail curl around me so I could cushion my head on it. I spent most of my time peering down at the world below me; I didn't want to forget how beautiful life was there. The activities of the Halcyities, destructive though they may be, were fascinating to me. They had built wondrous machines out of ores they manipulated with fire; they had even conquered the sky! I wondered if anyone could sense us when they flew beneath our improvised hideout.
I felt many things when I looked down at Halcyon. It was jealousy mostly. I longed to feel the cool earth beneath my feet and to taste the air in the forests again. I had been urging her to wake for so long, but she shut me out, lost in some other time. I wondered if she was dreaming about being home again too; perhaps that's why I had this desperate need to leave this place.
When we first came to be in this place, when she was in her deepest thoughts, I could smell her memories. Some were from before we even met; they were cold and dank, like the sea cave where she used to play as a child. Most of them were of some other place I had never been with her; somewhere sweet and spicy, mixed with the smell of fish and open markets. It was a place where many gathered; I could smell all their essences mixing together. It was overwhelming to explore this place with her. I could smell things so much stronger than her that it made me nauseous to stay in this place with her for too long. Maybe this is why she picked this memory to hide things from me in, because she knew I would shy away from it.
It had worked; when I felt her coming back to that place, I'd disconnect from her. Now she was so close to being awake, I couldn't get back to her unless she let me in. I knew that would never happen. She was still angry with me after all this time.
As we passed over the little Boat Town, I saw a young man sitting on the docks, looking out over the water. He felt just like any other Soul, simple and kind, but I could feel something in my vessel react to his nature. She wanted to know more about him; it was the first time in over a hundred years she had even shown an interest in the real world. I stood up and stretched, yawning as though her needs were a trivial matter to me while trying to hide the excitement in my body. I settled across her chest and began telling her all about this man.
He was smaller than most men on the island and his skin was considerably lighter than it should be for a native, but he smelled of the woods in a way only a True Son could. His hair was long, dark, and shaggy. His hands were mostly callus.
“But what is he like?” she asked, whining slightly.
I smiled; she was almost back.
He's frowning. It makes little lines around his mouth. He's slouched forward; I'm afraid he may slide off into the sea if he sinks any lower.
“What sort of Mark does he have?”
The same one everyone in this little town does, but his is bright red. And there's some...smudging at the bottom, like it was drawn on with ink and he touched his wrist to something. The life ribbon's a little turned, like it was meant to be seen as three dimensional.
“Move off me; I want to see him for myself.”
I sat up and looked into her eyes as she opened them for the first time since she created this place. They were watery; the light was probably excruciatingly bright to her. After watching her wipe away her tears, I pressed my head to her forehead to welcome her back. She pushed me off her like I was nothing.
“I hate when you do that! It so...fox-like.”
I rolled over onto my back, letting my tongue loll out of my mouth. “Is this better?”
“No, not really,” she said sourly.
Rocking back onto my stomach, I stretched my legs out in front of me and rested my head on them so I could be comfortable during our analysis of the man. I could hear her struggling to force her legs to move; she hadn't anticipated the toll that this long rest would have on her body. I could feel my muscles pulling stiff joints, forcing them to move again. I shook it off, trying to remain disconnected from her until the pain passed and focus solely on the man on the dock.
There was something off about him that I hadn't noticed before. My body ached with the pull of dry skin, so brittle it could snap. He seemed to be surrounded by an odd sense of gloom, but emitting such a bright light from his being. My lungs seemed heavy, still filled with the smoke from that day. He definitely didn't have the complexion of a native islander.
“Aramia, I know this is difficult for you, but do you think you could shut up for a second. It's impossible to focus with your thoughts running through my head.”
I sighed. She was always like this after she slid. Age, it seemed, did not bring wisdom to our race. I felt a ripple of relief run through my muscles and into my bones; I was finally on my feet.
“It took you long enough.”
Our movement was still stiff, but our body was responding quicker than it had when it first woke up. She was surprised to see that I was still living inside the fox's body when hers was now open.
“I'm rather fond of this one. It's oddly comfortable in here.”
“Whatever. If you're going to wear that thing you're going to keep out of my brain.”
“Fine.”
She shuffled over to me and clumsily sank to her knees, her muscles quivering the whole way down.
“You see him?”
“Yes.”
“He's interesting, isn't he?”
“Yes. I wonder why he's so glum.”
“You can ask him yourself now that we can leave this place.”
“Who said anything about leaving? Why would I leave after I went through all the trouble of creating it?”
I cocked my head over my shoulder and looked into her eyes. “Because you've been sliding down there and now that you're back here, you can't stand not being home.”
She smiled. “I guess you know me better than I'd like to admit, Aramia.”
I stood up and she sighed; she had allowed herself to attach to my body when I moved to learn how to control her muscles. She was always looking for a quick fix. Walking around her with a deliberateness I detested, I settled next to her (much to her disappointment; she would have had me parade back and forth the next ten years to relearn walking). I nestled into the curve between her waist and hips and laid my head on her stomach.
“You're my oldest companion; I know you like I know myself.”
“I hate it. That's where I spent most of my time; in the years before I didn't know you. The time in my life when I was free.”
“I know. I'd let you go if I could. Locking us here won't separate us. You know that now.”
She sighed and let her hand slide onto my head. She ruffled my ears. “I guess we're stuck with each other.”
She rolled onto her stomach and peered down at her home. She held her head in her hands and kicked her legs in a childish way. “It's changed so much. Look at all those buildings! And those...”, she searched our mind for the word, “trains. To think that something so big could be moved by water!”
“They're an ingenious race. They bend everything to their needs.”
“What about him?” she asked pointing at our glowering subject.
“I suppose he does too.”
She frowned. “There's just something not right about him. Look! He's talking to himself now, in broad daylight.”
I focused in on him fully now that I wasn't dragging her around in my mind. Our minds combined and we began to search for his identity.
“Hylen,” we said together.
“That's an old sounding name,” she mused.
We looked deeper into the world around him, searching for further information about him.
“He's a...wilderness guide. What's that mean, Aramia?”
“He takes people on nature tours. He's an only child.”
“He lives in a inn ran by his mother.”
“His father was a diplomat from Main; that's why he's so much lighter than everyone else. He doesn't know.”
As we plunged ourselves deeper into the world around him, we became aware of an outside source trying to fight us off. Barriers were popping up around information we'd normally have no problem accessing. It was if an imperceivably vast wall had suddenly materialized around everything he had was connected to.
She continued to search for a way around the guard while I stayed on the perimeter seeking the one who fought us so strongly. Every where she went she encountered the vast wall; she was becoming frantic. What if we can't get out either?
“You are not welcome in my realm, Aramia,” a familiar voice called from beyond the wall. “Isn't two vessels enough for you? All I've got is this one and he's not very talented.”
“Oh no.”
We pulled out. We were both breathless from the struggle with the barrier. Her body was trembling from the strain of holding us here.
“Who...the hell...was that?” she said, gasping.
“It looks like there really is something special about that boy.”
“Answer,” she commanded.
I flinched at the order. “That was Cero and he's taken up residence in that boy. That's probably who he was talking to a minute ago.”
“Took up residence...you mean, he bonded to him, like you did to me.”
“Yes.”
She stood up, her legs almost crumpling beneath her weight.
“Come on,” she called to me. “We can't stay here forever.”
“Oh, now you want to leave? I swear, whenever there is a man involved your interest suddenly spikes.”
She bent down and picked me up. She held me tight to her body, perhaps a little tighter than necessary, and for the first time since we met, she spoke to me with her heart.
“We have to go because I can't let him be as lost as I was.”
The current that we had been drifting on in the ether slowed and dipped; she could feel it leaving her. The veil of haze began to dissolve and below us we could see the beautiful world we left behind so long ago. An anxiety rose in me that I had never felt before; we were finally waking up.

Halcyon (Part 2)

Because I am feeling generous, I'm posting a version of a part of Halcyon. I'm considering redoing the whole thing from the first person point of view. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy.

Part 2

Hylen awoke in sweat, gasping and clutching his chest. Since his injury two weeks ago, he had the same dream every night. He rubbed his eyes, the remainder of the wound above his left eyebrow moaned in protest. He hadn't slept the whole way through the night in nearly ten days. The dream was becoming more vivid by the night.
“Aramia,” he whispered. It was the first time he realized she had been saying a name. “Is it her name?” he thought. He turned every detail over in his mind a thousand times and as he sat in the dark of his room that night, he realized he never saw her face or really any other feature she possessed. All he knew of her was her voice; it was soft, lyrical, but also dark and exotic sounding. She had a strange halting to her speech, as though Common wasn't her first language.
He sighed. He was getting absolutely nowhere. What was the point in fretting about this woman? She probably didn't even exist and yet he couldn't stop himself from trying to glean one feature of her from his dreams. He turned to lie on his side, gazing out his window.
The branches of the trees were casting intricate webs of shadows on his window. The shapes were fuzzy and surrounded by a strange haze and Hylen was uncomfortably reminded of his concussion and the hours of delirium it had caused him. The wind blew the branches, making the shadows weave together like the threads of a blanket.
They rocked back and forth and as Hylen stared at them he could hear the rhythmic scraping of the loom urging the threads to form a new body. They took shape under the clear hands of the moon, moved by the arms of the wind; he was no longer gazing at the of the tree; instead he found himself gazing back into the iridescent blue eyes of a great serpent, its body entirely composed of the shadows that had only a moment ago painted his window panes.
The snake stretched out long and wrapped about the branches of the tree, it's great black body rippling, the shadows which composed it shifting to form the pattern of a boa constrictor formed from the shape of the leaves on the now bare tree. It's eyes shown with the unearthly glow of the moon, which had disappeared from the sky; the absolute darkness made his eyes seem even brighter,
“You've eluded me for a long time, boy,” it said to him, his voice silken and deep.
Hylen found himself unable to speak; his throat had suddenly became painfully dry. He clutched his neck trying to communicate that he couldn't answer. The snake bobbed it's head in acknowledgment.
“I know; I've taken it from you. Everything about you is, and has always been, mine.”
Silence fell between them. The snake let out a low hiss and began to descend from the tree; he passed through the window as though it were as immaterial as he was. He landed silently on Hylen's dresser and stared straight into his eyes.
“You cannot hear my name, can you?”
He gasped, trying to force his vocal chords to move. “Aramia,” he mouthed.
The snake laughed. “You think my name is Aramia? Don't be absurd! That's a woman's name. Oh, I see. You're having dreams now. How interesting you are. Judging by those disgusting black circles, I'd say you've been sliding for a few hours every night for some time; am I correct?”
Hylen nodded. “Sli..sliding?” he croaked.
The snake let out a series of high, airy hisses that Hylen understood to be hilarious laughter. “You mean to tell me,” he said wriggling with joy, “that you don't even know what you're doing?”
Hylen frowned and crossed his arms. First this unwelcome guest had invaded his room, stolen his voice and now he had the nerve to laugh at him. He pointed out the window, back toward the tree.
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm not usually this rude, but to think that you can master me is hilarious. You can't even master your own legs.”
“That's a low blow; let's see you control your legs when you pass out,” Hylen thought. “Who'd want to master something as bratty as you anyway?”
“I'm bratty now, am I? Children these days sure have loose mouths.”
“You can hear me?”
“Of course I can hear you. We share the same mind, after all. I'm in all your thoughts.”
“Great. I had no idea my body was a double occupancy model. I guess tomorrow I'll have to tell Danny that I'm still seeing snakes everywhere.”
“I'm no hallucination.”
“That sounds like something a hallucination would say.”
“Oh, shut up, Hylen.”
“Aha! That proves it. If you were real you wouldn't know my name.”
The snake let out a long hiss and shook it's head. “You are remarkably slow. I know your name because I live in you body.”
“Yeah, the bruised up part of my brain that's probably bleeding as we speak.”
The snake slithered forward, stretching out to Hylen's ear, his body now resting beside him. “You,” he whispered, his forked tongue flicking Hylen's ear, “are a fool. My power will never bow to you.” Hylen could feel the scales of the snake scrape on the bare skin of his neck, the chill of the shadows strangely pleasant. “I could crush you right now, if I wanted to, and there'd be nothing you could even hope to do to stop me,” he said as he pushed Hylen's chin up with his tail.
“But why waste my time on an insect? To eliminate one as weak as you would be meaningless.” He tightened around Hylen's neck, now letting his tail hang slack and dangle on his chest. His hands shot up instinctively, desperately trying ton pry the snake free of him as he could feel his head swim with a dizziness he was all too familiar with. As he closed his hands around the snake's muscular body, he could hear the rush of the ocean and a soft voice whispering in his mind.
“Don't fight it. Come with him.”
The snake coiled about his neck once more and Hylen choked and sputtered under the immense pressure. In his mind he struggled as hard as he did with his body to repel this foreign creature from tricking him into death. Though he fought with all his strength he could feel his hands beginning to slip and his eye lids waver.
And, as suddenly as he had attacked him, the snake released him, letting his body fall limply against the wall, his hands still clinging to where the snake had just been. Flicking his tongue in disgust, the snake climbed up the legs of his night stand. He coiled his massive shadowy body up like a pile of rope and stared back into Hylen's eyes.
“Pathetic,” the snake said.
He gave Hylen one last glance and slowly dissolved, the shadows drifting back on to the window, the shine returning to the moon. Hylen's whole body was shaking with fear, his hands still clutching his neck uselessly. He groaned; the hallucinations hadn't stopped at all either. He shook his head, hoping that if he shook hard enough he could uproot the image of the snake that now haunted him. What he wanted most of all was to not hear the call, the sinister voice of the serpent telling him to come die.
He let his head fall against the wall, regretting it instantly as it thudded in the precise place his still healing injury was. He closed his blood-shot eyes and took deep breaths, trying to steady his heart beat; he swallowed hard, forcing the last bit of dryness remaining in his throat to vanish. He was supposed to return to work tomorrow, but he wondered if he could make it through a whole day in his current state. Slipping in and out of reality wasn't exactly something people looked for in a wilderness guide.

On a Side Note...

Oh, in case you care about me and my nightmarish search for a non-bunny wallpaper (and who are we kidding, you do), I found this one (and I didn't even have to repress anything).

If you know this show/these characters, you understand that this is me and Ryan in animated form.

Suki Discovers the Internet is a Dark, Scary Place Filled with Sex

Last night, still filled with bunny related rage, I decided to change my Linux wallpaper which was of the cutest rabbit.

(I know, it's ridiculously adorable.)

I thought that lemons would be a nice change. Why lemons? Because they are delicious and a very pleasant shade of yellow. But where to find the perfect lemon picture? I asked the internet deity (Google) for guidance.

In .27 seconds, I was presented with marvelous lemon pictures. The very essence of lemon was pouring out of my laptop. That was until when I checked a website (which I will not name because I'm fairly sure I'm repressing it's name) which promised me thousands of Lemons.

I'm not sure whether I could get by without the part of my brain that stores visual memory (I mean, I'm already missing some of my brain from my bout with Antonio Bandras), but I think it's worth a try. Lemon to normal people means tangy, yummy fruit. Lemon to the internet weirdies apparently means a sexual fan fiction about beloved video game and animated characters. Why lemon? Who knows. Who reads/writes lemons? I suspect lonely teenagers with a bad case of pixelitis and stupid, innocent people like me who stumble upon them looking for premium lemons (and actually want a lemon).

After reading a few lines, mentally scrubbing my mind with bleach, and stifling my boyfriend's laughter at my idiocy, I decided I couldn't pick lemons for a wallpaper. The whole thing was just too traumatic to relive every time I turned on my laptop. Feeling a bit like gravity had left the room reminded me of Inception; I decided to make the neat gravity scene my background. When I typed "Joseph Gordon Levitt Inception" into Google this is what popped up:

(This is a picture from GQ Magazine showing the versatility of ties. Right.)

All I have learned from this experience is that my web browser has safety settings. But, I doubt I will engage them because who really wants to miss out on the fun of being totally grossed/freaked out by stuff they don't want to find on the internet? Daniel Tosh wouldn't have a job anymore and I'm all about people having jobs (even unfunny people). So, let your freak flag fly, Internet, you saucy minx.

City Of Filth

My alarm rang at the crack of noon and I staggered to my feet. This was it, the day I would get my start in the sex industry! I dug my phone out of yesterday's pile of clothes and called Suki to make sure she was up.

"Suki! Your baby girl is all grown up, are you still going to come take me to realize my dreams and seek my fortune?

"If by realize your dream you mean be a stripper, then yes."

"Alright I'll meet you at the subway in half an hour."

Suki and I made an odd pair in the subway station as we waited for one of the smelly metal beasts to come and regurgitate its load at us. I was done up in full streetwalker regalia, Chicago style: Long black wig, smokey eyes, red lips, push-up corset top, sequined black miniskirt with fishnet thigh-highs, and shiny black stiletto boots. Next to me stood Suki in Swarovski Crystal ballet flat shoes, a flowy grey skirt, and a girly little camisole top. Her cute little purse was probably worth more than the deposit on my apartment.

"Regina, I have the distinct feeling I'm going to be mugged here."

"Don't worry, we've been to the redlight district before. I heard a lot of strip joints were looking for new dancers. This will be fun, and give us something interesting to write about."

"Yeah, I guess you're right, but if I lose a crystal from these limited edition Marc Jacobs, I may have to cut someone."

We got off the subway and looked around. It was hot out and the air was thick with exhaust, garbage stench, and a slight tang of urine. Everyone was in a hurry to get into a car or get into a building, and the people we did see walking the alleyways and sidewalks looked anywhere from tweaker to criminal. We were soon approached.

"Hey miss, miss, missies, you pretty garlz, you want a pretty purse, pretty purse for the pretty garls?" The man hunkered down at our feet and spread out a tarp covered in truly horrible knockoff designer purses, which had been painstakingly safety-pinned to the tarp.

"Puhleez, what are these made of? Blue rat? No thanks."

The man bundled up his purses and shuffled off. I saw a man in his 20's who looked like he could use a lap dance and decided to ask for directions.

"Hey mister, where are you headed?"

He looked at me like a cow looks at an oncoming train* and pretended to cough. Yeah, he was headed in our direction.

"We've looking for Glitterpuss, can you help us?"

"Uh well um I was actually headed that way, so... I guess I can show you where it is..."

Suki and I exchanged glances and fell in step with the jumpy young man. In a few minutes, we started to hear the music. At this time of day, there were only a few cars, but we could hear people talking inside. The facade of the building was made of an enormous plywood cat spray-painted like a rip off of the Chesire cat. It was also heavily coated in glitter. Lined up like kittens along the belly was a row of crudely drawn babes. Also, the whole thing looked like a giant cunt. Suki was apalled at the sheer hideousity of it all.

"It's-"

"Don't even say anything. Let's go in."

Three steps in the door, a fat little man in his 40's came to stop us.

"Whoah whoah whoah whoah whoah! We are only open before hours for private parties, and you are not on the list!"

"Seriously, why would I even be here if I wasn't on the list? Check again," Suki demanded as she snatched the clipboard. "Oh look, here I am, see?"

Cowed, the little man leads us to the back of the club. There is a group of mostly naked women lounging in a small jacuzzi and a few middle aged Italians playing cards at a table. I don't know what I expected from a VIP orgy, but this wasn't it. This wasn't sexy! This wasn't even FUN! It looked like a family vacation more than anything else. This was not what I stood for, this was not living it up Vagina Style.

"Suki, lets blow this joint."

The men at the table looked up hopefully. The fat man scowled.

"You can't do that here! dancing only, no touching!"

"I didn't mean that, but you goddamn assexuals can't tell me what to do with my mouth! We're out of here!" I took Suki's elbow and marched us out of there. As we got to the door, Suki stopped and turned around.

"You don't DESERVE glitter," she spat at the fat man and the group of girls. And with that we set off down the street.

...to be continued...

lyric from ALBUQUERQUE by Weird Al Yankovich

Bunnies: Beware

a bonus post from Suki

Today on the way down my street, I saw a bunny hopping along side the road. Knowing that rabbits are extremely panicky around cars, I stopped to let it hop across the road. Proving that rabbits are stupid, this bunny, rather than hopping across the empty road, charged straight into the driver's side door and fell down.

Being a sucker, I opened my door (very slowly so I didn't bop it again) to see if it was okay. As I opened the door, the rabbit popped up like a jack-in-the box; startled, I moved back covering my face, fearing the rabbit would go all Monty Python and the Holy Grail on me. The only thing I managed to do was knock over an open water bottle onto my passenger side seat.

As I said some very unladylike things to the bunny and the universe in general, I realized the rabbit was now trying to crawl across the road underneath my car. I tried scaring it by yelling at it in hopes that it would scurry away; all this did was make it run back the way it came and start over again. I'm fairly sure my door gave the bunny some sort of brain damage.

After five painfully long minutes, the rabbit emerged from the other side of my car and hopped lopsidedly away. As I drove the remaining 500 feet to my house, a butterfly flew into my windshield, committing suicide. As I swerved (slightly) to avoiding hitting the butterfly (fail), I nearly killed a rather terrified looking squirrel.

What lesson did I learn today? Rabbit are bad news. You try not kill one and it rams its dumb little head into your car and then tries to escape your car by crawling under it. If you see a lopsided hopping rabbit around, don't stop to let it pass because it just wants to try to dent up your car.

What I'm trying to say here is this: Beware the Bunnies.

Suki Dribbles on About Halcyon (setting, situation, ect).

Since my last post, I've had several people whine at me to explain certain things about my story to them; rather than go through these explanations another tedious time, I'm posting answers to several common questions I've received. If you bother me about a question that has an answer on this page, I'm just going to link you back here. :)

• Where is this story taking place?:
  

This part of the story is taking place on an island called Halcyon which is about one thousand miles from the Main Continent which is the setting for rest of the story. Halcyon is a small island with very few inhabitants (about 100,00 total). This section of the story starts out in a port town, where Hylen works as a tour guide for his mother's small inn. Halcyon has several forest and streams and few hilly-mountains; there are no native animals on the island; every creature on the island was brought over when Halcyon was settled.
No, this is not happening on Earth; it is a fantasy/sci-fi story. It is an Earth like planet, with oceans and forests and all that, with human like inhabitants. Think of it as Earth if you want, but just know that it's not.

• What does Halcyon mean?:

Halcyon is the name of a mythical kingfisher (bird) that was fabled to breed on a floating nest at sea during the winter solstice, hence why Halcyon is an island. It can also mean serene and peaceful and to remember back to happier times.

• Was Hylen really Hallucinating the events in the second half of this section of the story?:
  

Why people even bothered to ask this, I don't really know because there isn't a chance I'm going to give you an answer.

• Where is the burning city and why is it burning?:

The burning city is on Halcyon and it is burning because it is on fire. :)

• How do Danny and Hylen know each other?:

As stated in the last line of the story, they were once best friends. They dug in the dirt together for worms, they sailed around they island, they got lost in the forest outside of their home town, and generally caused trouble for people when they were younger. Why aren't they still friends? Stay tuned.

• How old is Hylen?:

23.

• Who is Aramia?:

A cuddly red fox.

These are all the questions I care to answer about this part of the story; like I said, if you realllllllyyy want to read the whole first part (the prologue, the un-altered first section, plus sections two and three) you can message me or leave a comment on either this post or the story post itself.

Suki's Weekly Story

Hi everyone! I hope you enjoy reading this exert from my longest, oldest running story. I wrote this section around a year and a half ago in one sitting. I hadn't read it in a long time, but, as I revisited it, I decided it was worthwhile to post. I'll be making several changes to it now that I've got the hang of doing hallucination/dream blurring better. I apologize for the length, but there really was no good place to split it up at. I've cut out a lot of information, including a prologue, so if you are really more curious about the setting and such just ask me to send you the missing parts. It's a fantasy/sci-fi story. Okay, okay, I'm done now.

Halcyon (part one of several, draft one of several)

Hylen awoke with a start. Sweat was dripping down his face and he felt his long limbs shaking. The dream had seemed so real, but as his eyes grew more focused the image of the burning city faded from his mind and he began to breathe easy. It was absurd, he thought, there were no cities on Halcyon. As he lie in his bed still trying to hold onto the shaky images that seemed so vibrant only moments ago, he could feel his eyes growing heavy once again. Soon all was black and he was safe.

The morning seemed to come too quickly. The light spilled in through his window and onto his dark face; in the distance a rooster could be heard crowing out, signaling the beginning of another day. Hylen let out a low groan as he pulled the covers of his bed over his face; “Paradise,” he thought as he snuggled down, trying to shut out the approaching day.

The door to his room opened, bring with it the smell of the morning baking from below. He could feel his stomach urging him to rise. “You can wait,” he thought.

“Yuri, you're going to be late again if you don't get up.”

He sighed. Here he was, a grown man by Halcyon standards, and his mother still called him by that ridiculous nickname. Recognizing defeat, Hylen sat up and stretched, yawning.

“Come on, Yuri, hurry up!” his mother called to him from the bottom of the stairs.

Hylen stood up, fighting the sweet gravitational pull his bed always seemed to develop whenever he tried to leave in the morning.

“YURI!”

“I'm up, I'm up!” he called.

Hylen stumbled down the small stair case that connected his room directly to the kitchen. As he took his usual seat at the table, his mother was busy instructing the cooks on how to prepare some sort of strange, bubbling, gravy-like liquid. He shuddered to think that he would have to eat it late that night. Not even the culinary adventure his mother was embarked on at the moment could curve the urging of his stomach.

“When is breakfast going to ready?” he asked his mother.

“Oh, I hadn't noticed you'd gotten out of bed. I assumed you fused to it.”

“A ha ha.”

“You know, Yuri--”

“Hylen.”

“You know, Hylen, you're life is going to fall to pieces when you move out of here,” she said as she placed a freshly baked apple strudel in front of her son.

“Then I don't have much incentive to leave, do I? Besides,” he said, taking a massive bite of strudel and swallowing in less than three chews, “if I leave, who will be left for you to nag?”

His mother leaned around him, clearing his vacant plate. She ruffled his already disheveled brown hair and leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. “Yuri, shut up,” she said, smacking him on the back of the head.

“Mom, you shouldn't get so angry; stress is bad for people your age.”

She sent another well-aimed slap, but Hylen was already out of his chair and headed toward the door. Still in his work clothes from the day before, he grabbed his cap from the hat rack and begrudgingly opened the door.

He was amazed by the fact that even though he had opened this door hundreds of times in his life, the onslaught of productivity from the outside world still took him off guard. The sudden rush of the smells from the daily market, the clear, bright click of heels on the pavement, the sweet taste of the ocean carried on the wind, the gentle caress of the wind on his cheeks—it all permeated him as he took his first steps from home.

As he walked down Ashbury Street, the street he had lived on his whole life, a peculiar feeling overcame him. The wind was now whipping past him, bringing with it the smell of soot from chimneys muddled with the dankness of the ocean. As he inhaled the scent of smoke, his vision became fuzzy, shapes came in and out of focus; the muscles in his body began to quiver and his knees buckled beneath him.

His vision must have failed completely because he found himself in darkness; the smell of wet earth flooded his nostrils and he could feel his legs struggling to push him upward. Screams, so many faceless screams, rang in his ears; this wasn't the normal cacophony of the markets. They were desperate pleas for help.

Suddenly, the smell of the smoke changed; it wasn't the familiar earthy smell of the trees on Halcyon or even the brine of the ocean. This smell was dark, putrid even; the reek of thousands of corpses being consumed in flames. He choked on the ashes of the dead. They scorched his throat as he called out frantically for help, fearing he too would become fuel for the blaze. When they entered his lungs, he could hear them calling out through his body, still hoping for rescue.

His eyes flickered open and saw the beautiful city glowing in the distance, lit up like a pyre. He was lying in the grass, too weak to stand or speak; someone must have saved him and carried him to this clearing. As his vision focused, he could make out the form of a woman lying next to him; she was weeping ad saying a prayer in a strange language he had never heard before.

She held her wrists up to the sky, as a criminal would when they are being shackled.

He wanted to ask her where they were, what had happened to them. But this woman, she seemed to be emitting so much pressure from her being that she was crushing him; her arms seemed to slump, as though a weight were attached to each one.

“Take them,” she whispered, tears streaking down her face.

She squirmed on the ground next to him, flailing her arms and legs wildly, as though she were a puppet being forced to dance. A ripple seemed to run through her body from her feet upward; as it reached her mouth she let out an agonizing scream. The sound of her bones breaking pierced his ears, drowning out even her pitiful cries. As her voice died away, so did the immense pressure.

She laughed, a brittle and hollow sound. “Aramia.”

He gasped. He was lying in the middle of the crowded street, people standing over him in fear.

“Hylen, are you okay?”

His eyes flickered open and he became distinctly aware of a warm liquid trickling down his face. His focus was still hazy and, as he tried to steady his breathing, he could still taste the burning bodies in his mouth...or was it smoke from the chimneys?

“Don't move; you're bleeding.”

“What?”

He touched his forehead and found a cut just above his left eyebrow.

“How did I get this?” he asked groggily.

“You just passed out a second ago.”

Hylen recognized the voice speaking to him. As he forced the crowd into focus, he found the familiar sun-tanned face of Daniel Baia, kneeling at his feet. Daniel's mopish blonde hair was, as always, hanging in front his deep green eyes.

“Danny, help the girl first; something crushed her.”

“What girl, Hylen?”

“The one right over there,” he said, trying to sit up. The sky dissolved and reformed with every turn of his head; he suddenly became aware of the searing pain of his wound. He put his arms out behind him, but they seemed unable to support his weight. He slid back to the ground.

“I swear, Danny, she was right there a minute ago. She's gotta be close by.”

“Hylen, do you know where we are?”

He thought about it a moment. “The street.”

Daniel stood up and walked to Hylen's head; he crouched down to examine the wound.

“This is rather deep. Surprisingly deep, actually. Leave it to you to find away to demolish your face on a street paved in marshmallows, Yuri.”

Hylen smiled. “Are you calling me accident prone?”

“No, Yuri; I am calling marshmallows dangerous.”

“Danny, am I losing a lot of blood? My eyes keep...swirling.”

“Head wounds tend to bleed a lot, but I’m afraid you may have fractured your skull…”

Daniel leaned over Hylen and worked some ointment into the still freely bleeding cut, his golden pendant of the Rod of Aesculapius dangling hypnotically in front of Hylen's eyes. As his friend treated his injury, the pendant twirled and danced with his movements and, despite his inability to keep a solid focus on anything, Hylen found himself unable to look away from it.

He knew it was impossible, he knew he was hallucinating from hitting his head, but the snake on the staff seemed to curl and twist to life with every rock of the pendant. As it coiled about the staff, Hylen could hear it hissing faintly, like a whisper in his ear. As it wrapped and twined, the snake's skin peeled off and clung to the staff and soon there were two snakes weaving together into a double helix. In his mind he could hear the serpent call to him: “Give yourself to us. We contain all life. Come to die.”

He could feel the fangs pierce his forehead; the searing throb of his veins as the poison entered his body was incapacitating.

“Geez, Yuri, I know that stuff stings, but you don't have to look like I'm torturing you.”

Hylen blinked his eyes. It was once again a single snake, stationary and lifeless on Daniel's necklace.

“Take me home, Danny. Please, get me home.”

“You are home, Yuri. I took you home before I treated your wounds. Don't you remember?”

“What?”

“You're in bed right now. You're safe. There's no fire. There's no woman. It's just us.”

“I...I don't understand what's happening to me.”

“It's alright, Hylen. You can sleep now; it's been twenty-four hours. Rest.”

“Twenty-four hours,” he thought. “How can it be the next day? I was just in the street, wasn't I?”

He furrowed his eyebrows in concentration. He could feel the tingling pull of his stitches. “When did I get stitches?” He tried to move his arms, but found them incredibly heavy and sore, as though he had been lying on them for some time. His legs were just as unresponsive.

“What's going on with me, Danny? I don't understand this.”

“You can't remember anything because I had to sedate you to treat your wounds. You were hallucinating pretty badly; you wouldn’t hold still. I was afraid you’d hurt yourself worse than you already did.”

“Oh, that makes sense.”

“It does?”

“Yeah; earlier I thought the snake on your necklace was trying to kill me.”

“What?”

“Well, it wanted to kill me after it shed its skin and made a second snake.”

“Maybe I gave you too much morphine.”

Hylen laughed. He could feel his consciousness slipping away from him. His whole body felt warm and light and as his eyes began to flicker, he could see the sun-tanned face of his once best friend pop into focus and he knew everything was going to be alright.

BONUS POST

A word about the name of our blog. It is inspired by a song called "Lady" by Regina Spektor. If you haven't heard of her, you are probably male, and you are excused. It is a song about a woman of the night who is a blues singer. It is told from the perspective of a friend of hers, who listens as Lady smokes a cigarette and says she has no regrets. Regina and Suki are both mistresses of darkness and glamor, but we are secret romantics and would never be prostitutes. The lyric is "Corner street societies, but they believe her, they never leave her while she sings, she makes them feel things." We want to make you feel things, sweet babies, and we have no regrets.

Regina, Friday

This night I went venturing into society with my slightly older slightly extremely Indian friend. If you are reading this, friend, I'm sorry, but you smoke hookah for chrissake. It was a great party even though my friend had to pay 10$ for me to get in and there was 0% chance of him getting laid since I was still sore from last night.

The band was called SnapJack and the Knock on Woods. (I think) I'll look them up. They play at The Golden Bear, and if you don't know what that is, I'm sorry for you. I love them, the bluegrass bastards. They are so wily! On a whim, I wrote down a fave song of mine on a napkin and put it by their set list. Instantly a look of horror passed across their faces; they had never played it together, but they knew it. After a minute of whispers, they played it. It was great, but i guess they didn't know the words cuz they didnt sing it. Here is the jist of it:

BILE DEM CABBAGES DOWN BOYS
TURN DEM HOECAKES ROUN'
ONLY SONG THAT I CAN SING
IS BILE THEM CABBAGES DOWN

I went crazy of course. Later the main dude tapped me on my bare back and made me jump out of my skin. He wanted to apologize for not doing it better. I said, "No I loved it, you guys are my new favorite Bluegrass group!" So in all modesty, I think I made his night. My skin was glowing with the fervor of being both very high strung and incredibly randy.

I started feeling really shitty physically around 11. There was no veggie food there and I was starving. I dragged my friend from his hookah and he drove me home. I had left my keys on my bed, so we had to force entry. Then I started to feel like I was so tired and achy that if I fell asleep, I would never wake up. So of course I talked to my imaginary friend until 4AM about nothing but myself. He was really tired but he made me feel better. That's what imaginary friends are for. Maybe someday he will be a real boy. And I will fuck him into a coma.

Suki has a headache, literally and metaphorically.

I have a headache; to be more accurate, it feels like Antonio Banderas is salsa dancing on my left temporal lobe whilst wearing those fancy pointed-toe heeled boots. Every time I try to concentrate and say to myself, "Get over it, get over it, get over it"Antonio learns some new steps and I contemplate the likelihood of my survival if I tried to preform my own brain surgery.

The easy part would be taking out the offending area; the hard part would be closing the wound with half a brain.

The real problem here is the metaphoric headache. I know that if I drink plenty of clear liquid, stay in a cold, dark room and think of shoes, take two of these and call you in the morning, Mr. Banderas will eventually pass out from exhaustion; you can only dance for so long, this is logic. Metaphoric headaches can only be cured by long hours with house plants, who don't talk crap back to you while you yell at them (unless you can find some hypothetical Tylenol at the theoretical drug store); it's a distressing fact.

The only other way to cure a metaphorical headache is to remove the head or destroy the brain. Why? Because if you have half a brain in your head (assuming you survived your Antonio Extraction), every time you turn on the TV or read the newspaper or get Tweets from Miley Cyrus, you can feel that creeping rot in your stomach. You feel that familiar sense of dread that you've convinced yourself is normal ooze into your consciousness. Pelicans dying (soaked in more oil than a funnel cake), turtles being burned alive in oil fields, genocide in some African country you can't pronounce, people eating grass in North Korea to stay alive and we're still talking about squirrels that can water-ski or that Heidi Montag is redefining "My Sized Barbie."

I feel dizzy and nauseous when I think about these things. I feel dizzy and nauseous when I moved my head too fast. I'm going to lie in a cold, dark place, take two of these and blog you tomorrow, and see what pops up on Google Maps when I try to get directions from my house to the Theoretical Drug Store.

--As a side note, I would like to give an unknowing citation to:
Louise Renison. My darling associate informs that there is a quote in the Georgia Nicholson series that very closely resembles my rant about Antonio Banderas. I have no memory of having reading this, but I trust my companion to be correct. :)

Regina, Thursday.

You can't add something without taking from something else, because there is a constant amount of everything, or at least that's what I like to think. As women advance in society, suddenly we are the ones getting high test scores and baller salaries. This means men are becoming, by comparison, the underachievers; the less desirable to hire, the less desirable... period. The way this affects intergender relations is serious bussiness, people.

It used to be that women would talk themselves down. Men would have to complement our looks and cooking because we were so pathetic and insecure of our worth. Now that the trend has reversed, the media has done a 180. Most movies these days seem to feature a kickass female who puts the boys to shame, whether she is a girl, a woman, or a hamster... and unless its a hamster, she manages to look stunning no matter what goes down.

The funny thing is, we don't even have to try that hard, I don't think. It comes natural, as a woman, to want to work hard to get yours. It was harder for us to shrink back and be happy doing only a tenth of hat we were capable of. Men on the other hand used to have it easy and are now struggling. For the first time in history, male eating disorders are significantly on the rise. Men are stricken with poor self-esteem and self-image. Or are they? Could it be they are just fitting into the now vacant niche of pretending to think little of themselves?

I know some men who are fine like MMMM YEAH GIVE IT. There is no way they could not know this, they are all intelligent. They say they have bad luck with or are undesirable to women. So let's see: smart? check. hot? check. penis? check. confidence? missing. Men used to put in a day's work and come home to be fed, revered, and loved by their wives. Now when they get off work they are expected to help out with housework and kids, stay in shape, and continue to be romantic.

It's so unfair. And you know what I say?

Serves you right, bastards.

Livin' in The LC (Suki's 'trip' around Kelseyville and Finley)

People usually have a lot to say about Lake County, most of it bad. If you walked up to me on any given day and asked me what I thought of living in Kelseyville, I'd tell you it was dull, lackluster, uninspiring, homicidally boring, and any other word for 'crappy' I could think of that sounded more polite. On the rare occasion, however, I remember not everyone is a country mouse.

It's hard for me to imagine that some people have never seen a cow before except on their dinner plate when I drive by them everyday to get to my house.

Faulkner would have been Faulkner without the South; Amy Tan wouldn't be famous without the unique perspective her culture gave her; Chaucer never would have penned the Canterbury Tales if he hadn't lived in England. The fact is that, no matter how terrible and drab this place can be (and trust me, drab is the right word) it's a part of me.

This is where I am from.




O rly?


No Kidding, your garbage is FREE, huh? What a deal.

Regina Vagina, Wednesday

Sorry Suki, I was born first, so I'm jumping in first. Here is my flipping miserable day that made me so happy I just dancercized for about an hour to my itunes.

I was in such a pissy mood this afternoon... then I realized I was wearing a thong because it's laundry day.

Once that problem was forcefully removed, the sight of the black lace made me realize my vagina was hungry. Poor pussy, she hasn't been fed in a week. Dammit, once a week, men. I am less maintenance than most house plants. I'd call Suki to complain, but she'd probably just suggest I find inner peace. Peace doesn't come from within, it comes from someone coming within you. My special little friend with his not-so-little friend cancelled last night, which made me realize that the one downside to friends with benefits is that there are NO REPERCUSSIONS FOR POOR ATTENDANCE!

I cleared my mind with some savage video game destruction. I was super hungry from biking this morning but for some reason all I wanted to eat were these marvelous plums. Good thing years of vegetarianism have prepared my digestive tract for a high volume of fiber.

I've decided not to worry about people I know reading this and being offended, because anything I write I can say Suki wrote, and vice versa. Also, who cares? If you know me, you what kind of bird this is.

I had an unexpected phone call last night from someone i haven't seen in a long time. He is, to me, the Dos Equis man. Is that how it's spelled? The most interesting man in the room! Too bad he's an astronaut and he won't be coming to Earth for a while. His long distance bill must be through the stratosphere.

Well time to see if that spider has left my bathtub yet. It's been two days with no showering, but I won't rush him. I don't want to be all Hurricane Katrina on him. The meek shall inherit the Earth, and I want those guys on my side when that day comes.

The Dawn of Our Dilemma

Another Sunday in the city the clouds forgot. Looking in my closet, I felt the usual rebellion to put on clothes. Nothing is ever really clean and nothing will hide the sweat stains that take over as soon as I step outside. Fuck it. Maybe Suki will agree to a bum day. Sunday bum day.

"Aye Suki, how is my mistress this morning? The heat is coming for us, fancy a bum day?"

"You read my mind, 'gina. Meet you at the pit after a shower."

"Don't bother. Just sweat out the impurities, like the Chinese."

"I don't think that's the Chinese..."

"Meet you there."

I put on some tattered cutoffs, a wifebeater, and a really sad looking baseball cap. Sometimes we go undercover as bums for research. You see, we are writers. We just haven't decided what to write yet. But it's going to be good.


The pit, an aptly named abandoned lot where transients and, on the odd occasion, Regina and I loitered, was as dusty as ever. Browning weeds clung to life in the barren dirt, refusing to bow their heads even for the majesty of the sun.

Unaccustomed to being anything but the center of attention, blending in in sweat pants and an over-sized t-shirt felt like a form of torture. People walked past us like we were nothing. We clung to the background of life, like human trash.

“Regina, do we not look at homeless people when we pass them?”

“Shhh, someone will catch on; we're undercover, remember?”

I sighed. The wind kicked up some dust into my mouth and I tried not to gag.

People continued past us, bustling their way to wherever. Talking on their cells. Fiddling on their iPhones. Reading the news on their iPads. Listening to music, ear buds in, world out. Children playing their DSi's and PSPs.

"Look at these zombies. What has society come to? All we do is gratify ourselves with cheap music and porn."

"You're right Suki. It's all about getting the laugh, getting the sob, making these poor sods feel something. Entertainment is the only way to get through to people."

"Well we have to do something, 'gina. It's not right that a couple of wannabe bums are more in tune with reality than the so-called normal people. We have to educate, spread the word like Mormons."

"Shit, what do we know about that? And we just established that entertainment is the only way to reach people."

"So we write a blog. We make it entertaining, but we open people's eyes to stuff like this, the Pit. We make them learn new words. We should do it for ourselves if nothing else."

"But only the literate to semi-literate read blogs. How will that reach the masses?"

"With any luck, it will eventually be made into a sitcom."

Bored by the roll of the urban sea, we trudged back home. The air-conditioning hit us like a brick wall of refreshment. Suki sighed as she sat down in front of her already sweltering laptop.

“Whoa, that was easier than I expected,” Suki said as she finalized their blog. “I guess these things really are idiot proof.”

“When should we post our first blog? What do you think it should be about?”

“Hmm, well how about how people need to be constantly plugged into things to connect to each other anymore?”

“Doesn't that make us hypocrites or like electro-drug dealers or something? Suki? Hello?”

“Oh, sorry, I was texting. What was it you were saying?”

“Exactly.