Survival Games

[Madeira Dusk]

Madeira shook her head, her expression brittle and hard. "It's not hate. Anger, maybe. But that's because I'm human and imperfect." Her mouth quirked sourly. "I should be more like my goddess. I should have that detachment, that fathomless patience. But I don't. I despise what you're doing, but not what you are. We're not enemies."

There was almost no fat on the snake, so it didn't hiss and spark like she was used to. She could only watch the colour to guess whether it was cooked. As she watched it turn from pink to white she pondered that it looked rather like unseasoned chicken.

"Despite that, and despite what you might think of me, I care about everyone I take in, in my own way. I mean it when I say I want you to stay. Ghosts don't cause me pain, not like you think. If Dira can live on the island of ghosts, so can I, but..." Her expression softened, and she rested her chin on her knees. "Honestly, I rather like being haunted. It makes me feel like a home. Like I'm... inhabited. I don't like to be alone."

Petch it. Nobody here would survive long enough to judge her anyway. And the animals and exposure and diseases and whatever else was out there would kill her long before the honesty does. So she just turned their merger, possibly poisonous dinner as the day slowly climbed over to dusk. She missed her people, she missed her home. It seemed impossible that she might never see them again.

"A spear is a good idea." She accepted the mat and sat upon it. She never would have thought to weave grass together like that. She felt much better knowing they wouldn't be sleeping on the ground. "We should also make some kind of boat or raft tomorrow, and some kind of long stick to push us along. I don't like our chances of finding enough dry land to walk to our destination. And, unfortunately, and kind of critically, I can't swim. This place doesn't look especially deep but it's full of snakes and lizards and if it's too deep for me to jump up and breath I'm done for." She glanced up at Alice over the fire. "Any chance you or your host can swim?"

Madeira had itched through most of the mud on her body, and as the grey twilight descended the glow of her lapis ink chest and shoulder tattoo's started to show through the cracks. It wasn't enough light to see by, but enough to see her by. She could only hope there was nothing out in the swamp that would be attracted by it. The only animals large enough to hunt them so far looked to be the enormous water-lizards.

She took the mug off the fire to let it cool, then pulled down the snake to test its readiness. The stringy meat pulled easily between her fingers. It smelt like smoke and was rather overdone, but when she touched it experimentally to her tongue it didn't make her want to vomit, which was probably a good sign.

The boiled water, however, which couldn't even steam in the suffocatingly humid air, tasted wrong. She never considered how good her mountain spring well was until she nearly gagged on the foggy swamp water. Her tongue was gritty in her mouth as she pressed her wrist to her lips and forced herself to swallow. She couldn't bring herself to take another gulp, so she passed it to Alice, along with their half of the snake.

"I'd rather lick the leaves for moisture than drink the water", she stated vehemently. "We can't just boil this. I need to think of something else."

WC: 620

x

[Alice Weaver]

Alice nodded their head at Madeira’s words. So she did not hate them but was just angry. She cited that she was imperfect and that she should emulate her goddess and be detached with ‘fathomless patience’ and Alice couldn’t help but snort, their body’s shoulders shook with a repressed laugh.

“Oh Gods could you imagine living life like that?” They switched to a more neutral tone as they gave their opinion. “I don’t think you would be living if you were detached. It’s our attachments that keep us alive and what keeps some of us anchored here even after our life is gone and done. Besides you are already stuffy enough it seems. Calling my childhood feral because I the gall to roll around in the mud.” They snorted.

Oh. She doesn’t want to be alone...maybe we are more alike than we thought. They wordlessly stood up and move their mat right beside Madeira’s and put an arm around their shoulders, both holding and clinging to the only other person in this god’s forsaken swamp. “Well, with that in mind I’ll be sure to haunt you every night then if you like it so much. I’m sure Emma and I could come up with something. Along with this Jomi you’ve mentioned a few times.”

“A raft is also a good idea and I know how to swim. It’s not like I did not grow up next to a massive ocean or something.” They stated dryly. “And you should learn. It’s a good skill to have for boating, baths, and even when you occasionally get transported to a random swamp who knows where without any clothes and only a sack with a few essentials in it…Now the follow-up question is. Have you ever built a raft? Maybe you could hypnotize some of those lizards to pull it for us…”

They trailed off as they accepted the snake and half mug of water, hungrily devouring the serpent, clearly not the first time they had eaten a snake as they noted the way Madeira grimaced at the water. They looked down at the mug in their hand and smelled the slightly swampy water but they had watched it boil and it’s as clean as it was going to get in this environment. They’d ate Syliran snow as it fell on the road, swampy water had nothing on that! So in one smooth motion, they tipped their head back and drew the draught of water into their mouth. Before they could even gag at the rotted taste they had already swallowed. The instincts of the body having reared up and taken control for the briefest moments leaving the bound spirit with a disgusted look on their face as their tongue hung out with a bleh

“Gods. Not what I expected my first drink in a...body to be.” They blinked before they whispered to themselves. “I am in a feeling body. I’m...alive again?”

They quickly shook themselves of those thoughts. They had every reason to believe it is temporary along with every reason to believe it was permanent. But it would do them no good, temporary or permanent if they died here in the swamp. Instead of dwelling on that fact they turned their head upwards to the crowded canopy as they thought about what to do about their water.

“It’s silly to dig a well. Boiling should work, no? But it just tastes bad. Is the taste bad bad or is it just a taste and not going to hurt us? It’s the safest drinking water about so it’s unavoidable really...A filter? But we have nothing to filter it with…I wish I learned magic right about now. The ability to make a barrier sounds like a useful thing to be able to do. Oh, and before we go to bed we should recoat ourselves with mud to keep the bugs off else I don’t think we will get any rest tonight and I think we are going to need a good rest. Did the map give you a good idea of how far we have to go?”

WC:697

[Madeira Dusk]

"I grew up next to the Suvan too. I just think you and I had very different childhoods." Madeira watched sideways as Alice choked back the water and shuddered. "Of course I don't know how to build a raft. But it just needs to float, right? Wood floats, so if we can find a way to cut down enough trees and tie them together..." Her hands turned vaguely in the air, and it was clear to both of them that she was guessing at everything. Gods, she was so tired. She felt spent in a way that ran soul deep.

She watched Alice talk about water filters mud, but she was no longer listening to the words. Her mind was on the body pressed to her side, and the steady rhythm of its breath. They were both sweating in the heat. It mixed with the humidity in dewy drops and ran down Alice's corded arms. Alice ate the food, so she must have been hungry. And she was definitely thirsty if she could stomach drinking the filthy water. But this body wasn't hers. It belonged in the wilderness in a way that dramatically opposed that dead red-haired woman she had once met at the Outpost market. What was she? Was she human again? Or maybe she was something else.

"What does it feel like? Being alive again", she asked aloud. It was exactly what Alice wanted, after all. Yet even now the sensations it carried seemed to read only as pain. It was miraculous, surely. Only a god could do something like this.

She pulled their arm out from around her shoulder and held it in front of her. She pinched the tip of a finger until they reacted, just to prove the feeling ran all the way to the edges. Scrubbing the flaking mud off their hand she studied the skin, brushing careful fingers over the creases and callouses that could only come from a lifetime lived. There was a callous on his index finger she recognized from Zach; it came from using a bow. There was a small scar on his knuckle that might have come from a fistfight, or just knocking his hand on a corner. Only once she had studied every angle did she give it back.

"Take good care of that body", she said simply. "You owe it a lot."

Vaguely she remembered Alice had asked her about the map. Madeira retrieved it from her sack and dropped it on their lap. "I can't read a map", she admitted ruefully. "I have a problem with my sense of space. That's why I always have either Emma or Spooks with me- I literally can't find my way around without them. The only thing I can glean from the map is that this is all swamp in every direction, and Syna rises from over there", she pointed vaguely east.

Bats had started swooping down from the canopy. They passed low over them, nothing but a flash of dark shapes, feasting on the moths attracted by the smoking fire and everpresent mosquitos. The sounds around them were changing subtly. The murky water lapped against the trees, suddenly loud against the gathering dark. Frogs were chorusing just out of sight.

"We should sleep in shifts", she commented suddenly. "To tend the fire and keep an eye out for... anything. If you tie up your bed, I'll take first watch."

x

[Alice Weaver]

“I’d say. You probably grew up rich, didn’t you? Not to be rude but you seem the type. I had to make do with second-hand clothes and mushroom stew. So I would assume we led very different childhoods.”

Then Madeira asked the question they knew was coming. What did it feel like to be alive again? Now that was a complex and deep question to ask someone who just got their body back. They fell silent for a time as Madeira inspected the body’s hand. She turned it this way and that way, even going so far as to pinch the fingertip till they winced in pain. They never noticed the small details on the hand before now, the small scar, the bow callus, where the veins traced blue underneath the tanned skin. Her next words and their own observations really hammered home a simple fact. This was not their body. They were just the current owner but they did have the vaguest intent to give it back. To say the idea to run away with it hasn’t crossed the ghost’s mind would be a lie.
“It feels...like every part of my body is standing on edge. Every part is screaming is bliss and agony at finally being able to feel. The sensations are so overwhelming I am trying to ignore them else I think I would be a puddle of flesh writhing on the ground for the next few bells. The smells are so sharp and I have forgotten what it feels like to have sweat run down your back or just how noisy a body is. I can hear the blood rushing through me and the churning of my stomach. Every muscle twitch I am hyper-aware of and I feel my weight constantly shift as I breathe. It all so beautifully overwhelming.” They sigh in a blissful state. “But really with this happening had made me realize… it’s possible. This is possible. Knowing something is doable is half the battle. I know my goal is possible, I’ve live it. All this does is make me want to live but in my own body. I’d be a hypocrite if I stole someone else’s life to live as my own. It defeats the whole purpose! Think of all the ghosts I could help move on if they just had a body to complete their business before fading away, without the help of a Spiritist I might add. No offense meant to your profession but some of your kind are crazy.” They speak as they clench their fist in front of them and watch the tendons flex and strain.”

At Madeira’s offer to take first watch they just simply nodded and went to string their bed between two trees. Before lifting themselves up onto the bed they first reapplied a slathering of mud then creaked onto the makeshift hammock that swung gently in the rapidly cooling humid air a scant ten feet from the small warmth of the campfire.

“We’ll make it out of this Mads. To that, I swear to you.” And then they fell silent as laying on the gently swinging hammock in the cooling breeze, listening to the droning insects was oddly calming as their exhaustion caught up to them. And for the first time in six years, Alice truly slept.

WC:556