{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "canonicalUrl": "https://serpentsquiggles.neocities.org//posts/fiction/atdra/04",
  "path": "/posts/fiction/atdra/04",
  "publishedAt": "2019-10-13T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:ivoe7cntxuy6at7uzmxzs2ft/site.standard.publication/3mfk6cpprzt2t",
  "textContent": "First order of business was distracting the red guard. I looked at\nhim, at the mirthful swell seemingly always in his bell, and I decided\nI didn't want him to harmed, not truly.\n\nWe marched onward to the Arid Canyon Reef.  This country was a land\nscratched east to west with canyons.  You could look to the horizons\nand see clear to where mesas rose up in the north, or the forests grew\nthick in the south.  The ocean was to the west, but I forgot what was\nbetween us and that.\n\nCorals rose up gnarled and reaching.  They appeared in bursts across\nthe land, breaking the flatness. Hardy plants clung to life in even\nmore sparse arrangements.  Where the water might pool, moss\nflourished, but altogether any break from the palette of grays and\nbrowns was reserved for medusae themselves.\n\nI had three obstacles.  The green-bell floated behind me, sunshield\nheld up in one tentacle and a spear gripped in the other.  Several\neyestalks were reserved for staring right at me, and it seemed many\nsensors were awrithe, sifting the air for any hint to be suspicious\nof.\n\nThe medusa of shifting colors floated far beyond me, as if keeping\ndistance from the filthy ratslayer.  She had gone full pink right now,\nand I wasn't sure at all what these colors meant.  She had a small\nknife near her sunshield, held as if concealed but not very\neffectively.\n\nAnd the red guard floated just in front of me, bell inflating, and a\nfew waving eyestalks looking at me.  He was significantly more useful\nthan any of the other obstacles.  This fool thought we were friends.\nHe would stand by me --- at least once.  That would be enough.\n\nThis sort foolishness --- no, I didn't want to punish it too harshly.\nI decided I would see him steered blissfully away from harm.\n\nStill, not taking a entirely violent stance towards the lot of them\nmakes this job so much more interminable.\n\n(As if I stood a chance, outnumbered and outskilled, if I did want\nto kill them.  My line of thought is funny sometimes.)\n\nWe floated onward, toward Avelt.  The sun above us embarked upon its\nreturn journey, and from the other side, clouds were travelling in to\nwarn of rain. They were dark.\n\nI looked at the red guard, the shifting guard, the green guard.  I\nfelt the coldness stinging my tentacles. It would endlessly even the\nplaying field --- of that I was assured.  But was it ready?  It was\nsaid I would know when it was.  Did I know, now?  Had He factored in\nmy ubiquitous uncertainty?\n\n(No, of course He did. He was a god.)\n\nI had to assess the danger of the three guards.  Colored jellies had\ngodstingers carried on down their lines from when the gods had first\nanointed them.  They all had some strange kind of magic I didn't,\nbeyond the telekinesis which endowed all medusa.  Red was a ubiquitous\nstrobilation --- firestinging.  He could spray bright flame from his\ntresses, just a few feet.  He'd shown me once, so I'd know even if my\nF hadn't told me all about them.\n\nThat left green and she of mercurial rutiliance. I couldn't pin them\nto any gift F had explained to me, and guessing would be useless.\nGreen couldn't be utterly rare --- there'd been one more guard like\nit.  The ever-shifting jelly could commune with the gods, somehow. Was\nthat part of their stinger?  It seemed to be their capacity alone.\n\n\"You've gone all silent, Ru.\"\n\nNothing saying.\n\n\"You know, a little friendly chatter and you would been less menacing.\nLess suspicious.  You want that.\"\n\n\"Hi,\" said I.\n\n\"There you go. That's a start.\"\n\n\"How are you?\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm doin' fine.  Been tiring myself out working long shifts this\nweek.  Was just hoping to relax after this one --- didn't expect\nnothing to actually happen.  But you know what they say of expects.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said I.\n\nThe red guard drifted closer to me, his melody dropping to subtle\nvibrations of his bell. He said, \"You know, ol' Yera over there is\nreally spooked by you.  You can't tell by her act --- or maybe you\ncan, deathly clever bastar' you are --- but in her book you are all\nsorts of bad news.\"\n\n\"Okay,\" said I.\n\n\"These 'okay's ain't much better than silence, y'know.\"\n\nI waved my eyestalks silently.  I glanced back to the green jelly\nbehind us.  The pair had been all silent as well. Made me wonder.\nQuite hard to get a real sense of jellies without them speaking.\n\nI was used to pulling together images from as little as I could get\n--- but just the word choice, just the way they conducted themselves\nin chatter --- it all counted for so much, building a good image.\n\nI needed to know if they would go down easily, or not.\n\n\"Why do you expect this ratslayer to even be capable of pleasantry?\"\nIt was the shifter who finally spoke, but you could predict that.\n\n\"'Cause I know them personally.  He's got a certain dignity in how he\ncarries himself.\"\n\n\"A certain dignity,\" came the response. \"Of a jelly who's covered in\nmud like they slept in a pit.\"\n\nI rose to say, \"Better than cowering as many meters away as you can\nmanage?\"\n\nThe shifter's bell scrunched up.\n\nThe red guard was speaking up almost as soon as I finished, replying\nproperly, \"Extenuating circumstances,\" he said. \"You'd be in a mess\ntoo, I imagine, after a run-in with the god of death.\"\n\nThe shifter looked suddenly at me.  Bell squeezed tight and angular.\nHer tone was raw.  \"What is the name of the death god?\" she asked me\n\nI stopped in my floating.  Fell down to my stalk.  The voice --- it\nhadn't been a jelly voice, and theirs was not a jelly name.  If it\ncould even be reproduced by my membrane --- I didn't have to heart to\ndo so.\n\nI said, \"A terrible name that starts with M.\"\n\nShe paused too, at that.  \"Forget everything he's told you.\"  That\nun-medusan voice had taken on a certain tightness, a surety of\npurpose.  \"You don't have to follow this path. There's no prize at\nthe end waiting for you. It only ends in annihilation. You _lose_.\"\n\nI picked up on something --- higher, in her voice.  I latched on, and\nsaid, \"Thought you wouldn't share prophecies with the ugly ratslayer.\"\n\n\"No prophecy.  Consider it a symbol or pretense.  Merely divine\ncommentary.\"\n\nThe word choice confirmed it, even if the voice wasn't familiary.  His\nname started with E.\n\nI twisted my bell at that, made a low wordless, vibrating sound.\n\nIt was her voice, speaking now, scoffing and saying, \"Truth is,\nAveltane knew you would not swayed. Knew you were hopeless.\"\n\n\"Determined, is the word I'd prefer,\" I said.  \"I've decided what I\nwould do.\"\n\nTo the red guard, she then spoke.  \"Why then, are we humoring this?\nWhy escort him, hearing everything he's said?\"\n\n\"I don't see the issue?\"\n\n\"Kill him!  Right now, right where he floats!\"\n\nI forced crackling power into my tresses, and bounced high, high above\nthem.\n\nThen I found myself right back at the ground, as if I'd never rose, as\nif all my momentum was gobbled up in a second.\n\nI threw myself upward once more, to escape---\n\nAnd found myself right back on the ground, again, as if I'd never rose\nat all.\n\nThe guards were still talking. They weren't trying to kill me.  It'd\nonly been a suggestion.  One that the red guard had vehemently\nrejected.\n\n\"No.  Why would we ever do that?  What has he done?\"\n\n\"He has all but admitted to being a servant of the death god.  Keeping\nhim here is a mistake.\"\n\n\"It's common sense.\"\n\nMulticolored lips squeezing skeptical over eyes.  \"It's allowing\nwhatever he's decided to take place.\"\n\n\"If this is the work of some god... who's to say us trying to kill him\nis part of whatever plan there is?\"\n\n\"Stupid, stupid objection,\" she said, as if that were an argument.  I\nsuppressed a laugh.\n\n\"I'm not going to kill a jelly for no reason.\"\n\n\"Even if it could save many more? Even if it was the right,\nordained thing to do?\"\n\n\"Even then.\"\n\nI looked around till I say the green-belled medusa.  It had to be\ntheir godstinger that kept me from escaping.  Teleportation?  A\ngreen tress pointed right at me.\n\nStill, not all bad.  I'd gained another piece to slot into my\npuzzle-reckoning.  Two more pieces, actually --- the green jelly could\nprevent me from escaping, easily, and the color-shifting jelly does\nindeed have a power for easily talking to the gods.\n\nNot all bad, and yet, distinctly and frustratingly bad.  This was so,\nso, much harder than it could have been.  I miss dealing with\ncolorless jellies.\n\n\"He tried to escape, and I don't like the way his eyes are searching\nabout.  Just tell us: what are you really planning?\"\n\nI was thrown off, just a bit, from how she went from talking about\nme to talking to me , but I responded, \"I just want to run. You are\ntalking about killing me.\"\n\n\"We won't kill you,\" the red guard said.  He drifted over and threw\na tentacle affectionately around me.  I flinched away, so hard and\nquick that the green jelly had to teleported me backc again.\n\n\"Can we get moving again?\" My bell was expanded and deflating, as each\nbreaths was absorbed.  What a dreadful exchange that was.\n\nNothing in the ever-shifting medusa's gaze lightened or relaxed.  But\nshe said, \"Yes, let's.\"\n\n- - -\n\n\"I haven't had lunch,\" I said as we entered town.\n\nThe Arid Canyon Reef was a forest of coral, rising up, spreading out,\ngrowing intertwined and interleaving.  Jellyfish floated about, and\noctopuses and snails danced around as well, some on leashes, some\ncarried, some wandering about on their own with the snapping energy of\nferals.  They all pressed themselves on through the maze of coral,\nfinding their own way through the abundance of paths and spaces that\nwere the definition of a reef.\n\nSome paths lead to dark holes dug in the ground or carved into\nsandstone buttes.  Many jellies perched inside of these structures,\nlike fruit poised on the boughs of a tree.\n\n\"Do you expect us to escort you to dinner?  Have you forgotten your\nlie already?  You wanted to get cleansed at the sun spire.  I'd expect\nmore urgency.\"\n\nI absorbed a breath, and measured by my words. \"I think I might be\nwaiting there a while.  After all, I --- I intend to see the high\npriestess.\"\n\nThey did pause at that, but it seemed like t",
  "title": "And a Motley Crew Escorts"
}