Moon in their Antlers- Seifer: Baas

“So if you could tell me, convince them somehow to remember…” Baas sounded a little hopeless. A great deal tired and lonely, and Seifer had to wonder exactly how many other travelers had come through. He’d mentioned others, he just hadn’t been specific how many there had been, or if they’d come back.

                Seifer had to guess the answer was no, since he was sitting across from a being who was literally rooted to the spot, slowly becoming a statue. “I’m sorry this has happened.” Gods what an entirely stupid thing to say. It wasn’t helpful, it wouldn’t magically undo the damage. Not the stone and more than that, it wouldn’t stitch up the unseen wound of wondering how you’d been left behind so cleanly.

                “I don’t know the area, but it sounds like it shouldn’t be too hard to find a city…” He offered, slowly. Every time he blinked, he expected the light and heat to be gone. To be back in a closed, cold tomb with grave goods and offerings. The blank expressions on faces that had been so familiar and were now strange. That would never be familiar again.

                “Yes, the parkats may even help guide you if you need it.” Baas agreed, kneading absently at the place where flesh met stone. It was such an absent, exhausted gesture but it spoke volumes. Being part stone but not wholly. To be unable to move from that spot, to lie down and sleep.

                Questions buzzed like mosquitoes in Seifer’s head, not the least of which was to wonder where the other creature garnered the determination to continue asking for help. Wondered how fast the stone crept, and how long it had already been. How long it would continue to be. He didn’t ask, not because he couldn’t, but because he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to how someone kept hope alive with that kind of determination.

-

He had no food to leave with Baas, could only follow his instructions on what to gather from the surroundings and leave as much as he could reasonably leave by the strange creature, though maybe out of some sort of warped mercy the gods of this place seemed to have prevented him from starving so far. Or dying of thirst. He questioned if it was a mercy or cruelty that Baas seemed sane.

                “I guess it might be debatable if I’m still sane…” He mused to the Parkat that had landed nearby as he rested, rubbing his foot and trying to decide if there was a reasonable way to dry out his boots when it felt as much like swimming and walking in this place. “Maybe I’m just dreaming all of this.”

                The Parkat chrip-meowed, blinking vaguely and then moving to chase a small flying insect.

                “Well at least if I’m either dead or dreaming you’re better conversation than I was expecting to have in either of those circumstances.” He muttered. “Though if I’m either I wish it came with the ability to imagine I was dressed for this.”

                He didn’t even have a bag with him, so he’d tied up the dramatic red jacket into a passable one to carry anything he didn’t feel like he could safely discard. Much as he would have rather burn it, he didn’t entirely trust this strange place. A man heard stories of folk vanishing entirely, but he tended to assume that they had more than likely been eaten by something, not actually been spirited away.

                “…If something ate me and I don’t know it I hope it takes a big dump on something Ragnar loves.” He added, dourly. The Parkat swooped by again, snagged its prey and then let it go again, dropping down and unexpectedly climbing onto his lap. “Hey, no! No it’s hot! You’re hot! You’re covered in fur and I’m… ugh. FINE. Entitled beast. This does not make us friends.”

                The Parkat purred, apparently entirely unconvinced, kneeding with all six paws.

                “This. Definitely. Makes us not friends.” He grimaced in protest. The Parkat just purred more.

-

He didn’t expect the flash of anger he felt when he first stepped onto a busy path in Aridin. People laughed, joked, carried goods. They marveled at the floating temples, the parkats, the greenery and everything this place had to offer. Everything that wasn’t Baas.

                There were human faces and creatures he couldn’t have imagined in a fever dream, and they all looked so happy and distracted while one forgotten soul faded away into stone. Baas had asked him to remind people, to ask them to remember him. It wasn’t what he was itching to do. What he was ITCHING to do was to jump the nearest smiling face and drive a fist into it, or scream at them. To tell them they’d be remembering Baas or they’d be remembering nothing at all or some other absurd threat that was almost definitely counter to what needed to happen.

                It wasn’t even about Baas, he knew. The rage at those happy faces was more than a little selfish, but why shouldn’t he be. They certainly were. And so were the gods in this place, as far as he could tell. Leaving someone so faithful and so patient to slowly turn to stone. He didn’t understand how Baas could still find a smile for yet another stranger like him. How he couldn’t hate every single person that wandered in free, blissful ignorance of what was happening.

                The Parkat that had been trailing him drifted by in a slow glide, chirping in satisfaction that it had gotten him where it had been told to lead him. He let it go without a word because he had no words it needed to hear.

                Temples… emergency supplies for the temples. That was what Baas had said right? Well… that seemed like a reasonable place to start… if… he could figure out how to get there.

                Seifer’s mouth tightened into a thin, angry line and he sucked in a deep breath of hot, damp air. This place was green and bright, but those were things whose charm was wearing a little thin, like all those smiles around him.

                He had a mission, and a word to have with priests and gods in this place.

                Wonderful plan. Be possibly dead, find and and yell at a god. Punch the god? … Probably not that one, that level of stupid was going to require more than one hard drink and he had no idea where to find one of those or how to pay for one in this place.

                Stick to the bad plan. It was better than looking back.