The Rada and the Petro are two of the three major families of the Loa. They are in balance with each other, like night and day, but not always in harmony. The Rada are called upon for gentle healing, for advice, for beneficial energies and magics. The Petro were born in times of war and slavery. Their services are more powerful and more belligerent, their price is often much higher and often dark. Many of the most powerful Loa have two aspects, one Rada, one Petro, making them balanced unto themselves, while lesser Loa are often balanced by an equal Loa in the other family. It's important to note that neither the Rada nor Petro are good or evil, just different aspects of a concept.
I had less warning this time. I wasn't even expecting it when I went under for the second time this week. Oh well, at least I was already prone this time...
Then, I was drifting.... I don't really know how else to explain it. There was a grey film over everything, and I just floated lazily from here to there, pushed by some unfelt wind. It was a calm, serene world. It was almost like it was a place that existed just a second away from real life.
I remember, so vaguely that I might have just imagined it, staring at myself, my body still slumped down under the strange tree.
Shinigami was there, staring back at me. He grinned that pyschotic grin, and just mouthed the words "Mine now."
I remember waving at him.
Like I said, that could have been a dream.
Other things followed. Some... I'm not so sure about.
A dwarf hopping from foot to foot and glancing at his wristwatch. I giggled lazily and asked him where Alice was. To my surprise he very solemnly told me that she was supposed to be here an hour ago.
Another was an odd jumble: a light and airy female voice singing "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know whatcha got 'til it's gone?" over two dark male voices singing a duet about a dark side in Japanese and English... at the same time, there was a man in leather, chewing on a cigar. He was laughing heartily and saying something, but the music was too loud to make out.
Yet another was in that grey world. Heero was slumped over something, rocking back and forth soundlessly. He whispered the word "baka" and stood up, his bundle ... my priest's overshirt ... falling to the tiled floor. He walked away.
I still wonder if the baka was for him or me.
I'm pretty sure that one I whimsically imagined.
I know a few other scenes flashed by, but as much as a try I can't collect enough of the pieces from my memory to give an accurate account of them. Let's just leave it as: it was weird.
The last one though, was clearer than crystal.
Through the murk rose two figures, locked in battle, a giant bird made of some silvery metal, and a mottled red snake coiled around it. It almost looked like some strange standard on a flag.
The bird gave a great metallic squawk, its talons fulitely trying to crush the coils wrapped around its body.
Sensing something dangerous about this scene, I started to back away. I don't know where I planned to run to, but it made sense at the time. Both combatants noticed my movement at once and focused in on me with predatory eyes.
The silver bird and red snake gave up their struggle with each other and lunged toward ME instead, hissing and crowing in anticipation. I just stood, shivering, waiting for the talons to rend me or for the fangs to sink into flesh. I knew somehow that I couldn't outrun them. They were older than time and they wanted me.
Instead of pain, a great wind brushed past me with the force of a tornado, yet not disturbing a hair on my head. Howling and shrieking it's fury in counterpoint to the two creatures outraged calls, it battered them back, leaving me stunned, within what can only be described as the eye of the tornado.
"Who are you?"
"In anceint times we were those who spoke in Japanese, the wind both sighed and howled at once, it was a disconcerting sound, even to my dream self, "whispering stories of spirits and dragons, royal battles and deep honor, then in the languages of the Nile, chanting of creatures like gods and gods like creatures, reciting in Greek and Latin of petty squables and great bravery, philosophy and battle,"
The winds gained in pitch, I could almost see a face in the swirling grey if I looked hard enough. It seemed to be vaguely female, but set in hard lines as she spoke. "We were those who chanted in Gaelic of death and rebirth, the natural and the fey, in the tongues of Africa of those who passed before and what was yet to come, then in French to those same people in a different land, the Rada whispering compassion and love, while the Petro sang a counterpoint of war and liberation, now we go full circle and speak Japanese again, but what shall our story be?"
It was probably a rhetorical question, but I never could resist an opening.
"How about the one with the priest, a cow and the rabi walking into the bar.." I asked.
The winds stopped their frantic swirling for a moment. I kind of got the impression of a confused recoil.
A rich, and male, laugh echoed in the silence of the wind's confusion. "I must say," a familiar voice called out jovially, "My fierce and virtuous sister, that this is the first time in centuries I've seen you so flustered."
"He does not listen." With a hiss of wind, a slender woman, dressed in the garb of a warrior, stood some distance away.
"Of course not, it's not /his/ nature, ma petite." The Baron appeared amidst a swirl of black. He took a moment to tip his top hat at me. I rolled my eyes at him. "If you want someone who listens and listens too well, talk to the other side, for this mirror is shattered."
"Should I be offended?" I asked suspiciously. Not that I really understood what he said, but I /can/ pick up when a jab or two is thrown in my direction.
"It wont help if you are or aren't," he replied, not unkindly.
"There is no time for these games." The warrior woman tilted her head to the side, as if listening to something I couldn't here. "Your other side is tired and wants to sleep now. Wake up."
Before I could formulate anything coherent enough to be considered a reply, the midday "sun" was attempting to fry my half opened eyes through a window near the ceiling. Given that rather miserable circumstance, it took me a moment to relise that, A. I was in a prison cell, B. Handcuffs are pretty damned uncomfortable, and C. Whoever tied me up, didn't want me going anywhere soon.
In short order, I relized that I recognized where A was, got rid of B and hated to disappoint C, but there was no chance in hell I was staying in that tiny, itty bitty, suffocating and rather dirty room for longer than I absolutely had to.
TBC
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