Self Medicated
The pair would sit for a moment before the story began. The god's maw hung open and Hani could see tiny plants forming on the edges of her lips with every breath. The plants curled out in the delicate green of life, then died, shriveling brown, then black before they dropped. Every breath bringing and ending new life even at the surface of this being's maw. Her tongue was a dark color, like the sky just before a moonless night. Could she, maybe, turn inside-out to make night time? Maybe she could just turn over onto her back and her stomach was night? Where was the moon, then? Inside her? The story started and snapped Hani out of her fixation on the woman's day and night. Oddly enough, this wolf told about the beginning of light. Who was Haida? Maybe that was anther god's name. As the woman spoke, Hani's focus blurred from the dancing colors of reality as she focused on the story. The raven and its quest for the light- Hani could see it all. As the bird grabbed the light, she saw it's blackness lightened to a purple, like the tongue of the god before her. Once the light was in the sky, did the raven turn into a wolf, or back into a raven? Hani refocused to see the woman in front of her. Without much further thought, Hani decided that the raven must have transformed again into this wolf. How else would she guard the light? This god herself was possibly both life and death; day and night. Hani blinked again, remembering that the story had been finished. The god motioned towards the sun and Hani directed her attention to it, then back to the woman, "Thank you, Raven." Her words came out lazily, awestruck. It would be hard to tell if she was calling the woman before her Raven, or if she was thanking the Raven of the story. In Hani's mind, they were the same. The raven teeming with darkness while the wolf overflowed with color. Maybe they were opposites. Friends, siblings, maybe lovers? Hani didn't know how gods worked, but if they could transform, Hani had no doubt that the woman before her was the raven. |