Search Results for 'herself'

Arona knew she was being followed even before Mandrake started to psst her about the dark haired cloaked stranger.

She took a quick turn right (less perilous than left), and quickly grabbed the stranger by the throat when he came through, readying herself to punch him in the throat in a snazzy move she’d learnt from an old racoon-fu master.

“Who are you, why are you following me, creep?” She felt a rush of rudeness washing over her in a delicious arousing way.
The stranger had a cocky smile and a nicely trimmed pointy beard, and a set of gorgeous eyes of different colours. The right one was blue, and the left one green. His face had a golden tan, and she could feel his body was strong and lean.
Get a grip, Arona she exhorted herself mentally, sending the telepathic equivalent of a cold glare at Mandrake’s soft tittering.

“Well, you looked like one in search of an adventure, and I want one too. I need a guide from out of the city walls.”
“What about a magus, that would be an obvious choice, and a sure one?” she retorted, smelling something not entirely honest from him.
“I don’t trust the magi… And I don’t want people to….”

“Don’t care” she interrupted rudely, leaving him hanging there, quite sure he was not here to rob her of her bises. The rest wasn’t her concern, she was on a mission.

“Just don’t follow me, or you’ll regret it.” she said before hurrying Mandrake in the sunny alleys leading to the walls of the city.

She was stroking the black cat who was complained loudly at the unwanted massage, when the messenger arrived at her door.

“The King’s Chamberlain would like a word… in private” was all the footman had said.

“Doesn’t look a slight bit suspicious to you?” the cat told her, shaking and licking the human scent off its fur.
“Of course it does, don’t come if you don’t want to.” She replied smugly, wrapping her cloak around her despite the sizzling sun and the humidity.

She followed the messenger, wondering what required such discretion.

“A weighty matter indeed,” Downson said to her when she arrived at the rendezvous point under a vaulted passageway at a point where the sounds were cancelled out and voices could share deepest secrets in all discretion. “The P’hope has spies in many places… And at least I know of him, so he is not even the most dangerous one, I fear…”

She was not of many words. Seeing that, the Chamberlain’s continued.
“There are forces at play that conspire against the King’s rule.”
She couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
“I know what you think, people should be self-governed, but you can see it another way, people’s leaders are also the expression of their beliefs. But never mind the philosophy… You are uniquely talented for a rescue mission.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know have powerful allies… tools,… and dragons too, if the tales are true…”
She tittered softly. The tales were true, all of it except about the dragons being powerful allies for some rescue quest. Dragons were lazy dreamers, or at least the ones she used to know. She replied with magnanimity “Let’s assume I’m the person you need for this mission… What is my compensation for it… And don’t serve me platitudes about the travel being all that matters. That grumpy cat needs to eat.”
The cat suddenly turned his eyes into the cutest kitty eyes he could do. It would have melted the heart of the most stone-hearted villain in an instant.
Well played, Mandrake she winked at the cat telepathically.

“Well, word has it that you are on a quest to astral, and maybe I could help with that.”
“Continue…”
“I could arrange an interview with the Fisher Count. As an entrusted Guardian of the Saint Amber Graastral Stone Cup, he could grant you a drink from it.”
“Tell me more about whomever I’m supposed to rescue?”

At the sound of footsteps, he stopped, and pushed her towards a column out of sight.

“Oh, it’s only a cat” the soldier said, continuing his round unaware of the two.

As soon as the other had left, Downson resumed his talk in hurried tone and quicker sentences.
“I have good reasons to believe a young girl with great desire to prove herself was sent many years ago to the Fog Abyss as a rite of passage, but she was tricked and left for dead there. The magi who were supposed to protect her only said they had lost her. But something else happened. Last night, one of them came to me full of guilt. He was visited in a dream by an apparition of the young girl and her guardian angel. Something horrible had happened, but she told him she forgave him and that she was alive and well. You need to bring her back to us, and be discrete about it. Somebody wanted her dead and buried, and will stop at nothing to complete the task if they find out she’s alive.”

Before the Chamberlain left, he turned back and told her:
“Better be quick to leave, I shall have all that you require prepared for you. And a word of advise… you can trust no one, Arona.”

“I’m rubbish at meditation!” Irina said, opening her eyes after her tenth session in a row.

Mr R, who’d been waiting for her to come back from her inner trip, was, as usual, quick to dispense soothing encouragements
“Madam doesn’t give herself enough credit. After all, you have managed to… shall I say… appear this quaint bird.”

What? Irina looked at the direction Mr R was pointing at. That darn parrot again?!
Indeed, looking quite puzzled to be on one of the bog’s shrubs, Huhu was tilting, or rather bobbing his heard from left to right in a pendulous and rhythmical fashion, while Greenie was jumping around the shrub eager to catch the colourful beast.

“Then, that only confirms my suspicions…” she said. She had briefly connected to the bird, just about when she was processing the bleedthrough shotgun attack to bring her thoughts back to clarity. You wish… Sometimes the minds works in endless mysteries; she couldn’t tell why the bird came up in her thoughts, but it was apparently all it needed to appear there.

When Irina, with Mr R and Greenie in tow, approached the spot where the robot had detected activity, she had a lurching sense in her stomach that something strange was about to happen.

Some buzzing seemed to approach and leave, like a wobbling effect in the air around them, although she could see nothing.
Mr R, with its caterpillar boots seemed to have to trouble moving ahead, but with a silent sign of her hand, had him slow the pace down and move more silently.

A cracking sound, and she turned around.
A woman with a shotgun pointed at her was there, and a guy with handsome features. Caught unaware, Irina froze, and closed her eyes, trying to reach some inner peace before the imminent gunshot.

“Madam? Are you alright?” came Mr R’s soothing voice. Next to her, Greenie was drawing on her pants, with a concerned look on her face.

She opened her eyes, confused and relieved. The odd couple of hunters seemed to have vanished. Yet, she could have sworn hearing a gunshot and the blood of a giant mosquito splatter all around.
She could as well have dreamt all awake, as there were not a single trace around to back her vision.

“That’s what it is then…” Irina started to realize something. “Mr R, if you will, what about those presence you detected earlier?”
“Gone Madam, it seemed to have been a glitch.”
“A glitch, yes…” she said pensively. “Or something else…”

The things she’d just experience reminded Irina about some of the things she’d read in the past about the Bardo state of the Buddhists. She wasn’t a Buddhist, more a Realist ascendant Romantic. Yet, they made some interesting points about the nature of reality.
Usually, Irina was the kind of girl who liked to work up to her goals’ achievements. Building the little place for herself, even if mostly the work of Mr R, was a good example. Give her enough time, and she would always find resources to make a better life for herself. But here, it seemed beside the point. It could well be an endless loop.

She wanted to pierce the veil that surrounded the place, instead of erring in the fog of her own projections. She looked at Greenie and Mr R. She wasn’t sure they were real any longer, even if she had sure grown fond of them. She would see…

Now, how to get this island to reveal its secrets… As much as she found it boring, prayer or meditation seemed to be the only solution she could come up with for now. Less fond of the first solution, she chose the second and sat cross-legged on a mossy patch of the bog, where the sound of water seemed to have the right qualities.

Irina gave an appreciative look at the holographic map that Mr R had made of the island.
By a simple triangulation technique combined with sophisticated echolocation, the robot had managed to come up with a rough estimation of it, even though scattered patches were black, representing the blind spots, apparently due to the abundance of water bodies on the island that created interferences.

“Well, it actually looks better than I expected, the coast is a bit rocky, but probably more temperate and less humid than here. Some of those spots here seem to hint at habitations…”
“Madam is absolutely right” Mr R opined with confidence, and a glimmer of pride in his forehead interface.

“When the girl is well enough to travel, we’ll leave.”
“She’s still a bit cold and delirious.” The robot assessed, “Her condition has improved steadily, if not quickly. There is a good chance the green won’t go, but she will live.”

“Have you finished the sentinel?”
“Yes, Madam. It is complete and will serve well in monitoring the gate. Besides water rats and wrecked boats, not much seems to have went through recently. Although…”
“Yes Mr R?”
“I’m not quite certain Madam, which is confusing for me, but there was a moment were my sensors noticed a presence of a young person, but it lasted only for a few nanoseconds in a row, then I could not perceive it… It probably was a malfunction of my sensors Madam, I apologize, but the humidity…”
“I don’t believe your sensors malfunctioned Mr R. I do believe someone’s been trying to phase in, but didn’t succeed. Make sure your sentinel can detect such things…”
She went on: “Another thing, before I go for my astral meditation. Did you manage to get me a date? I’m no rocket science expert, but it sounds easier to get than your quite astonishing map Mr R.”
“Madam is too kind. And as as always, perfectly astute. This should be easy, but again this modest robot has run into a profoundly perplexing paradox.”
“A paradox, how exciting. What is it?”
“According to the shifting position of constellations during the nights and the sun’s elevation, the results differ from one day to another. We have to run a few more test to be conclusive…”
“Is is a local occurrence?”
“It seems to be true for the whole island, Madam. It is currently fluctuating between a series of years, some of which I mapped to the following years, in no particular order: 555, 777, 888, 1010, 1111, 1212, and so on until 2121, and as well, a series of related geographical points on the Earth.”
“No wonder it seems to be the garbage collector of the entire universe”, she sighed.

Then, something hit her.

If myths of such places were to be trusted… Could it be… the mythical Avalon ?
If that were the case… Who could well be the mysterious resuscitated bog mummy?
… One of the island’s Queens ?”

She smiled to herself, brushing off the notion. Irina, you’re such a hopeless romantic…

Irina started to smell foul play when she arrived at the coordinates indicated in the last of the laconic messages sent to her by the Management.

“Are you sure you got the coordinates right Mr R?”
“Very much so Madam, but if you will allow me, I will double check to alleviate the hint of doubt I perceive in your most suave voice.”
“Yes, do that please.”

When becoming anxious, Irina tended to get prone to bossiness, and didn’t like what she heard in her voice.

“I adore this door.”
Yes, that was much better with suave undertones, with a hint of foreign raspy accent to spice it up.

In truth, the door was plain, wooden, with a number painted on it, half erased, and a series of symbols which, although she could not place them, raised a distant alarm in her mind.
“Rainbow magic?…” That was how they renamed the lore of black magic when it was privatized and re-marketed to the masses. She had not seen rainbow magic in ages, and there was no way that door would lead to an actual island without moving her out of this time and space.

“Bloody buggers. Should have read those cryptic fine prints more carefully.”

She realized there was a good chance her promised island was in a godforsaken place lost in time. She could count herself lucky if the deserted island was not in the palaeolithic and raided by dangerous dinosaurs…

There was little choice. Either boldly embrace the great unknown behind the door, and trust her luck, or stay behind, short of the island of her dreams and probably condemned to run from the Management’s evil plans anyway.
At least, with option one, the lottery could be favourable.
That was what you got for dabbling in sketchy and questionable shots.

“Mr R, are you ready?”
“Always, Madam.”

She felt lucky and pressed the door.

“Good time for a segment of refreshment” was Sanso’s words of goodbye, as he left them retching sea water out of their system, and taking welcome gulps of air in the fresh cave of la Sormiou, just a few knots off Marseille’s harbour.

Linda Paul was impatiently chain-smoking outside while waiting for them near the dildo-truck, excited for a follow-up confidence sequence about the last show.
In truth, she would have loved to lead them herself in their adventures, but despite her saying the contrary, had chickened out at the last minute. A few months ago, the show’s had moved away from the initial pitch which was supposed to have only her as the main cast and star. It then shifted into the broadcast pilot with the other junior queens competition.
Her personal guru, Ganeshki had told her it had to do with beliefs of ageing, and she would have plucked his eyelashes out of his head. That was no thing to say to a lady.
But then, he was a bit right.
She crushed the butt under her high-heels. Nasty habit.
Not the butts, she tittered at the thought, but the chain-smoking. A fucking lot of beliefs with it too, she didn’t need Ganeshki to realise it.

At last, they all emerged, not looking particularly good, even if she noticed the effort to puff out their wet wigs.

“Oh, honey, is that kelp in your wig?” she disdainfully picked up a bit of algae from Terry’s hair. “Well, you all look…” she searched for words and broadened her smile “smashing!”.

“Sadie, honey, you did such a marvellous job”. She leaned closer lowering her voice to confide “That wasn’t a piece of cake, I will give you that”

“Well, Linda, now you mention it, I’d like a raise. And less working hours.”

When Huhu arrived at his destination, Irina was sunbathing to the last rays of a big red gorgeous sunset that painted the waves in iridescent shades of purple.
At the same time, the sun’s course had already started a new day on the shores of New Zealand, where her sister was living, and she surely would be thrilled. Long had she waited for the 2222-2-22 marker.
Here, in Hawaii, they would still be in 2222-2-21, for a few more hours.
Irina started to shiver. 22°C her watch read. As if she needed to be any more quirky about this date…

“Good boy!” she said to the parrot, taking the key it was carrying. Huhu tittered in contentment, cracking some of the pistachios she fed him distractedly.

She’d just received additional information from the Management. Elusive as usual, and leaving a great deal to interpretation, including the interdiction.

They’d promised to get her her dream island as a retirement plan. Some said it was the original land of the mermaids (who used to have as much feathers as Rio Carnival’s samba dancers), right off Italy’s Amalfi’s coast. Among its perks, it boasted to incorporate 8 staff, and a private grotto — that, if anything else than her fine waist line, would surely entice Sanso into other steamy booty calls.
She’d seen the pictures of the properties, her first thought though was that she needed to shoot the interior decorator. In short, it was almost her moral duty to get it, and change the decor. On the whole, she was convinced the island would do her good.

So, when she looked back at the previous instructions to see how good she’d done on her mission’s objectives, she shrugged a little. She’d understood instinctively right when it was delivered that it was a clever cipher, especially given the late date shift. So she had reinterpreted the actual commands, and leisurely waited for the travellers to appear, and get comfy. By now, she was certain they trusted her telepathic commands well enough, so that solved the trust conundrum.
Basically, she was a major proponent of her own interpretation of old Ho’oponopono rituals. Instead of the usual mantra “I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.” hers was a bit more straightforward and was around the lines of “Green sickness to you. Peace be with you, and bugger off.”
Said a few times with proper intonation and inner work, and it was know to her to alter dramatically any block or resistance into a great flow of pure unfettered energy. So she had adamant faith that all she needed to do to complete her mission was to focus on herself and solve the resistance within by letting go.

The last message was short.

22 the code * whale that * BO

It could only mean one thing. 22 was a clever cipher meaning conundrum as in a catch 22, but also an obvious reference to the temperature. So it could only mean one thing: tamper with the code on the 22nd, and send it on the way to the whales, with a bug on it.

“Mr R, please, fetch!”

The discrete, yet always present robot caught the key with grace, and on her careful instructions, proceeded to alter the code of the key.

Irina was enjoying herself immensely, and found it a pity nobody could witness her true genius. “The ones who’ll read that key later, well… they are in for such a wild goose chase!”
The second part of St Germain’s encoded hologram was now ripe with wonderful and bewildering information about blubbits and the magic kingdom of Peasland with obscure and arcane references of magic numbers like 57, that would have anybody sane turn mad as a hatter in no time. Hopefully the whales would be immune to the nonsense, but probably not humans.

Now was the final part of the plan.

“Mr R?”
“Madam?”
“I hope you are ready for this delicate reinsertion mission. Do you still have that octopus suit of yours ready?”
“Of course, Madam. Right away Madam.”

After they’d jumped in the robot (which had shapeshifted into a sand buggy big enough for them), they had to cling tight to the railing of the light vehicle, as the robot was driving recklessly into a jungle of unexpected leaves and green vegetation tentacles.
It wasn’t long before they were back on the gorgeously rugged Hawai’ian beach, taken on an unexpected dune racing along the coast.
The queens looked exhilarated, but Sadie was a bit overwhelmed, especially after what the Techromancer had told her.

The wetsuits fitting session passed in a blur, as the breathable elastic material was made to adapt to their bodies. Really, the only thing left to choose would have been color, but it was able to change itself at will, with very little shades it couldn’t replicate to perfection, even the Bollywood shine and twinkle that was all the craze in the 2019s.

“But we’re in the 2222s now!”, Maurana had voiced her disapproval of her choice of glittery fashion. Little did Sadie care about it. Her mission seemed to stretch to sidetracks and unneeded distractions on her path to Great Happiness.

All four of them clad in their fancy bathsuits and looking more like hippy frogs than sassy mermaids, they followed the robot on the miles-long deck that led to the horizon.

After half an hour of walking on the narrow bridge, they were at a good distance from the coast and Terry started to pant and breathe heavily in her green sardine scales costume.
“Stop! I got to catch my breathe, how long it’s going to be now? We were promised a soirée! Not a walk on the wild side!”

The robot, rolled back a few steps, and turned briskly.
“Actually, Sir, this is a perfect spot for your whale training”

And before they realized, the robot had opened the deck under their feet, plunging all of them in the ocean screaming.

Thanks to her excellent training and natural sharp reflexes, Sadie was the first to realize a few things.

• They were all alive
• They were able to breathe underwater
• Their suit enabled them to talk and understand each other in what sounded like whale-speech.
• A looming shape was quickly closing on them, looking dangerously like that of a giant toothy white shark.
• Her mind was a mysterious thing.

Why? Simply because the previous thought was coinciding with another one which was saying unequivocally that she still hadn’t found a proper dragqueen’s name for herself, and yet another one, even more funny than all others, saying in between bursts of infectious laughter that her last words could well be whale speech, and would make a hell of an epitaph.

She floated for a time moment stretched into an eternity, weighing all the rippling probabilities and wondered what her next move would be, as she was in the void of creation, hovering under a vortex of thoughts, with a sea of twinkling stars beckoning her further down the ocean’s clear bottomless depths.