pris and the after-dark cemetery ][ open

[Guest]

as the song says scho-o-o-o-ol was out for summer. pris had been free from getting up in the morning and getting dressed and getting shipped off to deal with boring mister english and broken mister math and all the rest of her teachers for almost three weeks now. for those same three weeks her most precious duck of course had to do his doctorly duties at the clinic, dommy dunderhead was keeping his distance besides sending envelopes to the front desk for room payment, and poof the parent seemed to have forgotten his promise and his margravina even though pris written a question mark on his chest in pudding weeks and weeks ago. so pris spent either her days and her nights up to her own devices - except on the days when lumie wasn't off in the box-ship saving the universe with mister planet, who always told her not to call him mister planet.

but people like mister planet should learn that she would call them whatever she wanted. even if she insisted that others only call her by certain things. as far as misses prisses was concerned, what she wanted was entirely different than the requests of everyone else.

and what misses prisses wanted to do with her days was also entirely different than the requests of everyone else. because as far as the teenager was concerned, if they couldn't be there to entertain and care for her then they could take their mouth-hole opinions of how she should spend that time and stick it in their other-holes. ever since last week when she took a new bus route that had a third to last stop at the westingwood cemetery, that's where she was spending all of her duck-is-busy nights. sometimes her days, but the after-dusk grave life was so much better than the after-dawn stones too tired to talk.

each night she wore one of five costumes, depending on which kind of cemetery citizen she felt like being that night. tonight she was shroud - that's the name pris gave herself when she dressed like a ratty skulking shadow, a costume which always got her funny looks on the bus and even funnier ones when she chose to get off in front of the westingwood iron gates. they always squeaked when she pushed them open, and tonight like every night pris would talk back - this time her squawk to the rusty gates was spoken in a gritty hiss, "ssssskkkkkrrreeeeeeeeee," because how else would skulking shadow speak? through the open crack in the gates the eccentric girl stole, skittering forward on the balls of her bare feet. even though sometimes her undertoes were poked by sharp stones the girl didn't even flinch or start, because that's just not what skulking shadows did.

swwooooooooosh! said the ratty black draping cape of a costume that billowed around her as she darted off in the direction of the knotty trees down the right-most path. when she was shroud she didn't take her big black shoulder bag with her, which showed just how much pris immersed herself into the place in the cemetery's citizens that she picked. what did skulking shadows need with shoulder bags? the plain black leotard that she wore underneath her shrouding had a few pouches in it to hold the few things she chose to bring when she was shadowing, and that was it.

her steps swooped this way and that as she hopped and skipped around cemetery stones of various sizes, preferring to veer off the paved path. as she swished her way through the graveyard she ducked and slipped behind the larger stones and statues, pausing there to softly hiss at any shadows she saw already claiming the location for their home. the snakish sound wasn't surly, it was strangely serene as her fingers curled into the pools of darkness and moved like she was stirring a pot. doing this it took quite some time to get to the section of knobby trees, and once there she dove forward in a patch of open grass and rolled around unabashedly grabbing any sticks her eye could spy.

these she broke, and scattered in her hair. just sticks, no leaves. shrouds didn't like dressing in leaves she'd decided, as she'd never seen a leafy shroud before. once she was satisfied in the number of dirty smudges and sticks stuck all over her, she slinked her way to the nearest stout tree and scaled its height six branches high, which made her perch about ten feet off the ground. it was a comfortable height, enough that she had a good bird's view, and the crossing of two branches gave her an ideal seat to settle in as she claimed this tree for her own.

"his-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s," pris announced her claim to the cemetery as she rocked from one side to the other from her spot in the tree. staring at the field of statues and stones the rest of the air in her lungs released in a peaceful sigh as imagined herself becoming as dark and slithery as all the shadows around her. she was shroud, she belonged here with this silence, she didn't have to worry about being alone or why she was alone. to tell the cemetery about her shady serenity she clawed her nails in a scritch-scritch-scritch against the bark of the tree.

then, she listened. this was her way of dealing with a darkness that she missed.

[Snake]

Hissssss. That's the sound a snake made. 

Hissssss. 

There were many types of snakes - especially here in the realm of Rhydin. Some were small and harmless while others were deadly. The same could be said for those of larger nature. If a person didn't know about snakes they could easily think the wrong one harmless. Snakes were known to be nocturnal (though some came out during the day) so it should be no surprise that when Pris hissed from her spot in the tree she was answered. 

A long hiss came from up above her head in the the branches that were there and in the darkness of the night a pink tongue flickered through leaves to correspond with the rustling. It wasn't very loud but in the quiet of dark sounds did often carry but for the girl in the shroud the sound of the snake carried right to her ear. If that sound caused her to seek it's source then she may catch a fleeting flash of black pearl eyes before the smooth scale skin of this particular snake slithered from view.

It was not going to hide from the girl. It saw her. It knew her and perhaps she would know it too. Near the base of the branch the snakes head drifted down so he was in plain sight even if the dark color made him hard to see at night his eyes reflected small slivers of light and the red 'ring' around his neck - simply a coloring of the skin - could just be made out. This snake was watching her. 

"Hissss-ah." That forked tongue flickered in the air.

[Guest]

swat, swat. that's what pris' left hand did when the snake sound tickled at her ear, with motions much like trying to shoo a fly. she would've used both hands, but with the way she was perched forward like the figurehead on the bow of a ship she needed her right hand for holding on. because the sound was so close, the eccentric teenager was assuming whatever was causing the sound was right next to her. so when her hand batted at nothing but air, pris leaned back into the cradle of the two crossed tree branches and twisted at the waist so with a stretched neck she could look up at the nearby branches and the canopy.

she had turned just in time to see the slithery head drop into sight. the red ring was where pris' eyes went first. then her eyes moved to look into its eyes. snakes were snakes and animals were animals. while pris didn't interact with most animals very much she had no issue with staring at them. mostly because when she looked at animals, they stayed animals and her vision barely warped while she stared if it even warped at all. somehow it felt different with this snake. staring into its eyes she expected to see its insides folding outwards and upwards like a children's pop up book. the way pris' sight always opened up the insides of people.

and this snake was in her tree. her tree. her her her tree. "ahem." that is how pris decided she would begin. because that's what one was supposed to say to people and things who were unasking hissface invaders, or at least so her oddly balanced mind told her. if the snake had said, 'hisssss-ah?' how the girl received it would've been totally different.

but what she said next, the words weren't hers. they were words given to her by someone else a long time ago, when he was teaching her about snakes. and pris transformed herself to deliver them, somehow changing the orientation of her expression, tone and even posture to be a perfect mimic of goodman poof. "the difference between wolves and snakes is that snakes beguile…wolves have no need. wolves don't play with their food. i would never slither on my belly." for the last sentence pris even delivered a perfected imitation of benjamin's faint distain in that moment he'd spoken those words to her that long time ago.

"sssssssss." pris added, making that upwards waving motion of her hand which always looked like her fingers were trying to slither up together into the sky. "does that make you feel better?" benjamin had said that to pris during the snake-charming lesson, but the way pris delivered that final sentence now was different. somehow, someway, the teenager managed to pack so much indigence into the words that the subtext translated to:

so there you fathead snake invader wiping your belly all over my tree. truly a subtext that only a precocious entitled teenager could manage.

[Snake]

If the imagination could work itself into believing that a snake could laugh then it should do so at this moment. This snake had listened to everything the girl had said and was highly amused. That a snake could even be amused and understand the complexities of human speech was another occurrence that needed the stretch of imagination but, then again, the impossible was always possible.

The red ring on it's neck had a glow that was inspired by the moon but the marking was common for this particular type of snake. She would be right. This was not an ordinary snake, it wasn't even a highly intelligent one, what it was, was an animated mold of earth with a collection of thoughts and vices to suit it's own purpose and arch desires. Like someone yet not that someone.

He retreated back up into the branches of the tree and the movement of the leaves began anew but towards her instead of away. The snake was traveling the branch above her to get to the other side where it would then drop down it's head once more. It's cold eyes blinked at the girl and the pink tongue flicked out to taste the air and see what it's eyes could not. "Sssssslither thi-iiisss way." Was the suggestion passed out by this snake.

It had heard perfectly well her opinion about snakes, how they beguile and play with their food but as it was a snake it wasn't bothered. Snakes took into account the nature of humans and, more importantly, that of females. The snake pulled itself back into the branch of the tree to move to her other side once again. To the trunk it appeared and began slipping down, its two feet in length curled and head propped to watch her a moment with a hiss of the tongue before slipping future down the tree.

It was headed for the ground.

[Guest]

for pris the line between reality and the imagined was irrevocably blurred, and unless the day ever came when the girl took medication to balance her brain chemicals, that line was as good as irrevocably broken, too. so snakes could laugh, and they could understand human speech, and they could even tap dance if they only had the hands to draw themselves feet. what the snake did now wasn't what had the lines connecting between the dots of her mind telling her that this snake wasn't a normal snake. the dots and lines decided that it wasn't a normal snake ever since it 'hiss-pered' right into her ear. because that hissper trick was familiar. it was why she'd benjamin-quoted to the snake in the first place, including the disdainful part about how he'd never crawl on his belly.

because she thought the snake was him, and that she'd caught the never-liar breaking his word.

which gave new meaning to the biting subtext she'd just treated the snake to, too. that sass was meant for poof the parent. so was the stink-eye she was giving the snake when it dropped down on the other side of her. could it see the glare she was giving him, or did it have to taste it with its tongue? in pris' mind that's what the snake was doing, licking the anger bubbles out of the air and pulling them into its mouth to squeeze the juices out. she imagined her glares tasted like those ginkgo balls that stank when stepped on and crushed into the sidewalk.

"may-be. maybe!" that's what pris hollered at the snake as it slithered its way down to the ground. the seventeen-year-old sat back into the criss-cross crook of her tree branches. folding her arms across her chest as she watched the snake slither down the tree. it was ready to go but she wasn't yet. she need time. to think about what she wanted to do. and how she felt about it. in order to answer those two brand new questions pris had to let her mind plot some new dots, erase some old connections and draw some new ones.

by the time she swung out of the criss-cross crook to a branch six feet above the ground and then jumped down to the grass from there, she'd made up her mind. wherever the snake was at that point, that's where she faced. "if we're not going to darn-damn DENNY'S hissface, i'm going to make mouth sculptures out of more words with four letters!" spoken empathetically with a defiant toss of her twiggy nest of hair, just to let the snake know where she stood on things. when it comes to teenagers, distance makes the heart grow surly.

pris made no secret of being a girl who needed regular attention. like a plant, she needed to be regularly watered. right now when it came to poof she was wilted, and she'd felt wilted by him for months.

[Snake]

"Ssssculpt-turessss are ni-ccccce." hissed the snake in response to the statement of what the girl wanted to do. He did think that were nice and taking what she said literally about making word sculptures the idea sounded even better. Snakes did like to slither in and around things, what better than letters? 

This particular snake was not far from the tree so unless she had trouble seeing his dark scales in the night - though the red ring may make it easier - he was not hard to find. He was on the ground but his head was up, tongue flicking out now and again to sample the air and all that it told him.  The debris on the ground tattle-taled his movement and it was going towards the older looking headstones. He had no way of knowing that she thought that he was a representation of someone else and even if he did then he wouldn't correct her. Thinking he was someone else would be to his benefit. 

And benefits are what it's all about. 

This snake paused in its movements toward the headstones and the body slightly coiled and his tail tip lifted in the air. He was thinking. Denny's. It was a familiar word but the reptile had to shuffle through the collective thoughts in it's brain to figure out what exactly it was. Then he figured it out. 

"Food. Denny'sssss." Her sour glare was noted and reveled in. Negative emotions. He liked negative emotions and this girl had some negative feelings she was directing to him and that slippery pink tongue circled in the air to pull it all in as his lips curled up in satisfaction. "Yes-sssss we ssss-hould go." Going somewhere with the girl was more promising than the stones and his direction turned to her. 

"Carry me-ssss." that last was hissed but also hissed in her ear as his first words to her had been. 

Following that request from the snake was a thought. One that wasn't centralized in the brain but came as a thought that people often get when something presents themselves as something wrong. The generalized feeling of 'don't'. 

[Guest]

pris scoffed, turning up her nose haughtily towards the sky. "you obviously haven't met enough sculptures." it was grumble-mumbled under her breath. more than just trying to be contrary, pris had experiences with sculptures and gravestones which were just as rich as people had with…well, people. especially gravestones, but one can't forget the very 'colorful' sculptures vox and jezebelington. the lives behind the stone and dirt and whatever else were what kept pris from feeling totally lonely in the slow days of summer.

she only took a couple of steps after the slithering snake before what it said next stopped her short. food, denny's, and yes? her compulsive mind with its dot connecting and reconnecting did not expect those three dots to ever connect when it came to benjamin. so the fact that the snake had agreed - and even more than that agreed so easily - was enough to send up a fanfare of mind flags, all waving 'halt'. so she'd halted. literally.

the prospect of benjamin indulging her desire for denny's after all these months of time was enough to turn pris lucid. "really??" as she cocked her head questioningly to the side and stared down at the slitherer, she sounded doubtful. disbelieving. on the verge of discounting the snake even before it could answer her back.

and then it asked her to carry it.

"his-s-s-s-s." was her immediate answer. and that answer didn't come with a pretty face. shroud was not pleased. because shroud (i.e. pris) was not an animal-toucher. she wasn't a even people-toucher, unless the person within reach happened to be of the small handful of precious people she trusted. in fact, when pris got a touch she didn't want by a someone who wasn't one of her someones, the girl could get downright violent. just ask her mind-doctor. he still had a few scars. add to that the fact that there had been times when pris wanted touches from benjamin and he'd refused them, and vice versa. touching was a very complex matter when it came to her and poof. it was not at all ever as simple as 'carry me'.

so pris didn't even need the feeling of "don't" to give her advice. she already had tons of mind-flags flapping in a mental huff parade. because what the new connections between dots told her was not at all what she'd wanted. playtime was paused. "okay snake." with the way she used that down-to-business tone, the way she shifted went hands-on-hips with something that was almost poise, and with the way she bored her big green eyes into him with something that resembled strength, the whole of her picture was a portrait of the pris that could be. the potential of the girl if she stopped letting herself get lost in the warped world was always following after her. she was seventeen, and maturity was right around the corner. "why do i want to go to denny's?"

she didn't even tap tap either foot while waited for an answer. with them she was already plotting the next course of action.

[Snake]

That was something different.

This snake didn't know about the ins and outs of Pris and how she had addressed him right then was different from her normal behavior and still it was smart enough to know that something had changed. Maybe his pretending to be someone else was going to loose it's benefits sooner than later. But if he was going down then he wasn't going to go down alone.

Maybe it could be salvaged.

The snake turned and coiled around itself thinking about how to answer the question. Why did people go to Denny's? No. Why did she want to go to Denny's. The pink tongue flickered out and his tail peeked out from the coil and the tip very slowly switched back and froth. This could very well be considered the snakes contemplative mode.

"Denny's-ssss. Pleas-ssss-entries-ssss. Conver-ssss-ation." That's what people did when they went out to eat together, wasn't it? If it was the same reason she wanted was to be seen. The snakes head lifted further and twisted to the side as he looked deeper at the girl. There was nothing hidden in his eyes, they were only black and dark with a collective parts of knowledge and personas behind them. It could be hypnotic to a weak minded person. But she wasn't one of those people. The eyes she was displaying currently and her posture said that she wasn't.

Still. He was a snake and some things were in a snakes nature to do. The tounge flickered out again and it could almost be assumed that he was smiling as the snakes head tipped upwards and his tail settled back down into the coil to give the non-threatening appearance. It might not have been needed as he hadn't done anything threatening to her yet.

"We make nice-ssss."

[Guest]

it was a wrong answer, as wrong as wrong could be. so the snake wasn't who she thought it was, because poof always made a point to say that he didn't and had no reason to lie. which meant that if the snake wasn't the most recent in her string of long lost parents, then to pris it was just a snake. even if she was mistaken. that was the trap of having her nexus cultures class this coming year - if there were kinds of beings that could spend time as snakes even though they really weren't, this girl from newport news virginia didn't even know such beings existed.

so it was a good thing that pris didn't want to stick around to hang out with just a plain old snake, either. and shroud (her persona for tonight) was a solitary cemetery swooper. she'd come to this exact spot of the graveyard for a reason, and the reason was the tree she'd climbed, but she wasn't about to climb it again. pris had watched how easy it was for the snake to slither down said tree, so her compulsively methodical mind told pris that meant it was just as easy for it to crawl back up. and there was something about this snake - the talking, because it wasn't poof the snake-parent the dots and lines in her mind demanded to know should it could it able to talk - which told her getting stuck with it in a tree wasn't a good idea.

or stuck with it anywhere else.

"his-s-s-s-snort." was her answer. it wasn't nice, in any way. the defensive stance of her body wasn't nice. the irritation-twisted expression wasn't nice. and of course her sarcasm tone was probably the least nice of the whole not-nice picture. all rendered with the kind of mean spirited perfection that disgruntled teenagers could manage. because pris was not pleased. this was shroud's tree, thus her tree, and tonight this snake had ruined it. it wasn't a safe place to be shroud.

she would have to find somewhere else. perhaps by the garden of fountain stones guarded by the big white blossom shrubs and statue angels. or maybe she'd leave the cemetery entirely tonight, returning home at an hour that would actually be decent enough for a change and give her enough time to shower the dirt and twigs out of her hair before her most precious doctor duck came home. whatever pris would ultimately choose, it started with a sharp swoop of her ratty black garment and the teenager took off at a girl-gallop down the path. unlike her entrance into the cemetery which had been full of whooshing and weaving, this time her bare feet stuck to the path and her steps swerved only to keep from stepping on potentially sharp pebbles.

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